


The Mechanic

by carloabay



Series: we don't need a license [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: 20th Century, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alcoholic Tony Stark, Alternate Universe - Gangsters, Blood and Injury, Deaf Clint Barton, F/F, Gun Violence, Knife Violence, M/M, Mafia AU, Maria Hill vs the world, Mild Blood, Mild Gore, Needles, Organized Crime, Private Investigator Carol Danvers, gay boi who Doesn’t Understand
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:40:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25912999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carloabay/pseuds/carloabay
Summary: This business is bloody, and Maria Hill is far from done with it.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Phil Coulson, Maria Hill/Natasha Romanov, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: we don't need a license [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1808770
Comments: 52
Kudos: 43





	1. Mechanical Fix-Up

**Author's Note:**

> Series re-cap: S.H.I.E.L.D enlists the help of Natalia Romanova, a dangerous Russian mafia leader in New York, to take down Red and Hydra, the infamous smuggling ring and the American Nazi organisation. Things go wrong when Agent Maria Hill lets down her guard.
> 
> This whole thing will make a lot more sense if you read The Widow first!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: blood + needles + hospitals + bad language

_"Told you so," she mumbles, dizzily, staring right through him and up at the dirty ceiling, her eyes terrifyingly glazed._

_"Fuck!" Clint curses, desperately pulling aside her jacket to reveal the spreading pool of blood that has already stained her entire shirt. Horror grasps his throat as she lets her eyelids drift closed. "Don't you dare, Hill."_

_"I told you...so."_

_"Yeah, you told me, you told me, now stay awake!" He's barely listening, just reading her tired lips, and he's holding her torso together with his hands. His fingers are stained a slick, bright red already. It's like her life is draining through his palms. "Hill, come on," he chokes out. Her radio is in pieces, over by her arm. The siren of the ambulance is too far away, they're too late, she'll die beneath his hands._

_"I'm not goin- not gone die..." she manages, snatching at his stab vest with weak fingers. She finds a handhold and grips him tight, and then her eyes are wide and dark, too dark. "Don't let me..." she trails off._

_"You're not dying, Maria," he grits out, desperately. "Not if I can damn well help it." There's too much blood: he's kneeling in it, covered in it, it's pumping warmly over his wrists. The ambulance is too far away, still too far. He gave them his location. They should be here by now. "Medic!" he hollers, again, again, until his throat is raw._

_"Barton..."_

_"Don't say anything," he snaps back._

_"Did we win?" Of course. Of fucking course Hill wants to know whether they won or not while she's bleeding out on her death bed. Or she wouldn't be able to rest, even when she's gone._

_"Yeah," he says, and she relaxes, almost completely. "We got 'em, Hill. You saved the kid, we can all go home." Maybe she's going cold, or maybe it's just the chill in the air. "Don't you go, Maria," he begs, cradling her head in one hand. Her fingers slip from the buckle on his vest and thump onto her stomach. "Don't you let go. Please."_

∆

She woke. She woke to a white ceiling and the gentle hum of machines. Starched sheets and a single bulb, dimly sparking in the sun-bright room. Maria remembered how weighted her eyelids had seemed, alone and bleeding in a dark room, so she fluttered them, up and down, just to check.

There was someone in the room with her, a nurse with a surgical trolley, white cap and scrubs. She was cute and smiling and hazel-eyed. Still smiling. Distantly, Maria thought that smiling that much must hurt her face.

"Doctor, she's conscious," called the nurse, rapping smartly on the door. It had a square of glass in it, like a little window. On the other side of Maria's bed, there was an actual window, a bright rectangle of glowing sunlight. The door opened, and the Doctor was a short man, curly salt and pepper hair, rectangular glasses. A sharp Adam's Apple and dark eyes. Maria tracked him as he moved to the trolley and pulled on a mask.

"Thank you, Kate," he said, and she bobbed a nod and moved to stand beside the door.

"How are you feeling, Agent Hill?"

"Fine," Maria managed. That single word sent a shot of pain through her ribcage and she wheezed involuntarily. The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Where's Coulson?"

"You missed the mission debrief, if that's what you're asking," he replied, pulling back her covers to inspect the bandages wrapped around her torso. Apparently satisfied, he picked a mercury thermometer from the trolley, motioned for Maria to open her mouth, and stuck it under her tongue, none too gently. The humming was still there, incessant, but she couldn't twist around to see anything. The Doctor was a bit off, too: she'd never seen him around S.H.I.E.L.D before, but she thought she recognised the face...

"Where's the humming coming from?" Maria mumbled around the thermometer.

"Radiograph next room," he replied carelessly, scribbling something down on a bit of paper. He finished and tucked the pen into the top pocket of his scrubs, then held out the scrap of paper. "Doctor's note. A week bed rest, minimum, please. Although I doubt you'll stick to it." Maria almost frowned. She'd never met him, yet he was acting like he knew her. And that nurse, shooting glances out of the door every other second. Maria tensed up, ready to spring, ready to snatch up a scalpel and fight her way out, and then the Doctor sighed, picked up a glass syringe and without warning or preamble, sunk the needle into her neck. A spike of pain, then a gurgle of liquid, and Maria's vision fuzzed to grey, and then black, and then nothing.

∆

She woke. She woke to a white ceiling and the gentle rattle of talk behind a wall. Starched sheets and a single bulb, dimly sparking in the sun-bright room, the hum of traffic below the beaming window. Maria remembered how weighted her eyelids had seemed, alone and bleeding in a dark room, so she fluttered them, up and down, just to check.

There was no one else in the room with her. Empty. A low truck beep split the ambient quiet, and Maria's eyes started to fall close again.

The next time she woke up, the room was a little darker, the shutter-stripes of sun on the floor a little longer. Her mouth was dry and her throat and muscles ached, but she struggled to a sitting position against the plump pillows and looked around again.

A surgical trolley glinted wickedly in the lower light, metal and glass instruments, a stethoscope, a mercury thermometer. A curled piece of paper, off-white, with inky, spidery cursive on it. She reached out, ignoring the twinging pain from her ribs and her chest and her arms, and snagged it with two fingers. It fluttered, crumpling daintily, and she smoothed it out with one hand.

_Doctor's orders: one week bed rest, minimum. The Mechanic sends his regards, Agent Hill, and requests that you stay the hell out of everyone's business from now on._

∆

They told her that she'd been in bed for four days. They also told her that there was no salt and pepper haired, dark-eyed doctor, and no nurses called Kate. There was a Katie and a Catherin and a Katelyn, but none of them had hazel eyes or an ever-present dimpling smile.

Doctor Cho looked worried for all of three minutes, then was called away, and put the ghost-doctor down to trauma.

Maria didn't show her the note.

She spun her own possibilities: anaesthetic-induced dreams, hallucinations, but the list stopped there and she wouldn't know anyone who'd think to leave a note like that. Except someone who knew Tony Stark.

Coulson came to see her two hours after she woke up, and as the door opened, Maria crumpled the note in her fist. Not just yet.

"Afternoon," he said, dragging a chair around from the foot of the bed to sit beside her.

"Hey."

"How are you feeling?"

"Spectacular. Like I could get right back in." Coulson laughed.

"You're not fooling me, Hill. It takes at least a week and a half to sleep off a bullet wound, even with S.H.I.E.L.D hospital tech," he said. Maria groaned.

"I am _not_ lying in bed for another _week_."

"You might want to fool Barton, though," Coulson continued, softer this time. Maria looked over at him, a sticky sort of guilt climbing up her insides.

"Is he...okay?"

"He's a mess," Coulson replied. He sat back, slumped in his chair, and loosened his tie a little. "Down in the exercise room at all hours. Barely even listens to me. Won't, or can't, take orders." His shirt was rumpled and his eyes were tired around the edges, and Maria felt another surge of guilt.

"Did he come to see me?"

"Two days ago. Wouldn't leave your side in the ambulance, and he had to be physically removed from the operating theatre. We thought you were dying, but Doctor Cho didn't have the heart to tell him that. I think he figured it out anyway."

"God."

"That's right," Coulson sighed, and he looked utterly miserable. "I gotta tell him you're awake. Maybe it'll make a difference, then." He twisted his fingers into the end of his tie, not looking at her, like he was considering what to say. "Look, it's not because of you that he's like this, okay?"

"What do you mean?" Maria replied, a little too snappily. "If I'd policed... _her_ a little better, none of this would have even happened. A lot of people would be alive." She ran a fingernail down the seam of her sheet, disgusted at the fact that she couldn't even bring herself to say Romanova's name. There was a lot attached to it that she didn't want to dig up right now. But Coulson reached out and took her hand, tugged it to make her look him in the eye.

"Maria, don't do this, alright? Shouldering the blame is not what's going to happen here. We all have a share in this." She waited a second, then pulled her hand back and nodded without looking him in the eye. He hadn't been there. He couldn't have known. "Barton's like this because he thinks he should have predicted her better. He thinks he should have known she would try to kill you."

"I should have known," Maria replied carelessly. "We all should have. It doesn't matter anymore." Coulson studied her for a long while, and then drew back and fixed his collar.

"Get some rest, then. Doctor Cho ordered a week of bed rest, minimum."

_So did Doctor Salt-And-Pepper. No one seems to remember that._

∆

Barton didn't come to see her for at least another few days. Maria drifted in and out of a fretful sort of unconsciousness, itching for something useful to do instead of reading and re-reading the note from the surgical trolley. By the third day of bed rest, May had already been four times in to secretly give her the mission debrief and paperwork to stop her dying of boredom. Morse and Lumley came every morning with coffee. Maria detested being the invalid.

Then Barton pushed open the door on the sixth day at five in the afternoon with a bent head and bruises all over his fists and forearms. He walked in without speaking. He took a seat without speaking. Maria noticed only then that he wasn't wearing his hearing aids.

He rested his elbows on his knees, his face in his palms, and released a sigh.

Maria waited.

Eventually, Barton raised a single hand, without looking up, tucked his thumb in, extended his fingers, and made an outward motion away from the top of his face.

' _Hello_.'

He still didn't look up. His hair was stuck up in odd angles, damp with sweat, and the back of his neck was red and dripping. 

Maria waited.

Finally, _finally_ , he looked at her. He looked awful. Raw-rimmed eyes. Skinned lips. A rough hue of grey around his cheeks. 

"I'm so sorry." He had a habit of slurring his words when he didn't have his aids in. Maria didn't bother to let him wallow any longer. Ignoring the warning shoots of pain over her ribs, she simply kicked her sheets away, struggled off the bed, and threw her arms around his neck.

After some long, heavy silence punctuated only by Barton's ragged breaths, he raised a hand and hugged her back.

∆

An Irish malt whisky and a pack of cigarettes were usually good companions. Silent. Tasteful. And they induced such a wonderful golden fuzz if you had enough of them.

Natasha had had two glasses of whisky and the room was wreathed in smoke, yet all she had to show for it was a full ashtray and a dirty scowl that she directed at the only other animate thing in the room: the cat curled up on the window sill, half of its fat side hanging out over the traffic in the street below. She hadn't the heart to close the window on it. Not yet, anyway.

She should have finished the mission. She _could_ have finished it. Now all she had was a regretful hope that Maria Hill would die in her hospital bed, and it wasn't really a hope, anyway.

Natasha sighed and poured herself another glass. The cat watched.

"Shoo," she said, half-heartedly. It blinked with slow disinterest. "G'on. Get outta here." Still, it didn't listen. Stubborn and hard-headed, just like a certain Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D who'd bled out beneath Natasha's lips only two days ago. Natasha's mouth curled in a snarl and she reached for the empty bottle, flew to her feet and flung it at the wall beside the cat's head. It burst in a shower of glass and bronze droplets and the cat scarpered and Natasha screamed obscenities at it in Russian and Latin. She trembled, red faced and terrible, and when she was empty of fury and bitterness, she threw herself back into her chair and downed the whisky in one gulp.

Outside her office, a few of her spiders were drunkenly droning along to country blues, drowning out her tantrum. There was a loud cheer, and Natasha glowered at the door. She had half a mind to tell them all to shut up and go to bed, but they deserved to celebrate. They'd taken out the competition, with only a few losses, and heavy drinking and loud music was how they mourned. Natasha pulled another bottle of whisky from beneath her desk, lit another cigarette, and tried to forget about Maria Hill and her blood and her lips and her dark eyes and the way she said Natasha's name.

"Miss Romanova?" She snapped her head up and narrowed her eyes. Parker was hanging half through the doorway, eyes alight with drink and something else.

"Pete? I toldja to stay away from the alcohol, didn't I?"

"I ain't been drinking, Miss," he replied innocently, and Natasha snorted in disbelief. If anyone could clear a bad mood, it was this kid.

"A'right. What is it?"

"The Mechanic. Here ta see you," he said. Natasha sat up. Tony had been in LA, last she'd heard. The hell was he doing here?

"Why?" she asked guardedly, and Parker shrugged.

"He says it's business, not murder." Natasha relaxed, and waved her cigarette lazily.

"Well, pour him a drink and call him in, eh?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back with my gangster AU >:)
> 
> Pls review!!


	2. Mechanical Meet-Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony Stark has travelled a long way for this. He doesn't do that often.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's Tony!! My bby boy !

Nat's headquarters were just as he remembered them. Plain and old and hunched in the New York rain.

There was music on, obnoxiously loud country blues; drunken singing and stomping of feet. His kind of scene. Maybe he'd rather something a little jazzier, but by the sounds of things, he'd have a drink in his hand for most of this might.

The car was a sleek red Bentley, flashy, but classy. Gold handles and bright white lights. Tony had built it himself, practically from scratch, and it was part of the Stark package. You want the business, he brings the car. The love of his life. And the only person allowed to drive it was, of course, Jarvis. Not Happy, not Pepper, not Rhodes, not even at a stretch. He'd trust Jarvis with his car _and_ his life.

The car drew to a stately stop and Jarvis sprang nimbly from his seat to open the door. Tony fixed his tie, checked his hair in the rearview mirror, and climbed out of the car, the cold blade of a knife flat against his thigh. You could never be too careful with the Widow. 

Not that he'd win, if it ever came to that, but Tony liked to put up a damn good fight, and he had vowed long ago never to be taken by surprise. A razor blade amongst a stack of birthday cards had built paranoia for years to come.

"Thank you, Jarvis."

"A pleasure, Mr Stark. When shall I bring the car around again?"

"Oh, I'll call you."

"Of course." And he folded himself back into the driver's seat and started the engine, a playful rumble in the ambient night. The car slid away and Tony made for the door of the theatre, brushing car lint from the shoulder of his jacket. He slammed a fist against the door when he got there, unfolding his glasses from his buttonhole and sliding them on. After a second, the door cracked open and a pale face, like a half-moon, slid into view.

"Who is it?" they snapped. Tony, with his back turned and his hands in his pockets, simply swivelled his head and raised an eyebrow, and almost immediately, the pale face was white and clumsily fumbling at the door. Then they threw it wide open and pressed themselves into the wall, bowing their head. "Please, Mr Stark, come in. My apologies. Come in, come in. Can I get you a-"

"Hey, kid." He didn't care for their ramblings, whoever they were. He'd already forgotten them. Parker was there, hanging drunkenly from the top of a door frame, and as soon as he saw Tony, his face split in a childish smile.

"Mr Stark!"

"How you doing?"

"Hey! I'm good," Parker said breathlessly, hopping down from the doorframe and bounding over to Tony. He stuck out his hand and Tony shook it with both of his. "What are you here for, Mr Stark?" Tony waved a hand vaguely.

"Ah, it's business, not murder. Hey, I heard you're Spider-Man now," he offered, and Peter's grin grew even wilder.

"New York ain't gonna know what hit 'em," he proclaimed. "Let me get you a drink, and I'll tell her you're here." And he bounced away. Tony watched him go with a fond smile, wishing he could have snatched up Parker before Nat had. He had his own legacies, though. Morgan and Harley did okay by themselves. More than okay, sometimes. Harley was the Man of the Stark New York business, and Morgan was the young scourge of LA. Looking after the place while Tony was away.

Tony made his way through the crowd and they parted for him, almost sub- consciously. His light suit and slick-greased hair seemed a little out of place amongst the New York mafia fashion, but he hadn't had time to change. Besides, what was the harm in bringing a little out-of-state flavour to a place once in a while?

Peter was back within a minute, an expensive-looking Scotch on the rocks in his hand and that big, dizzy grin still on his face. He pressed the drink into Tony's hand and then swivelled drunkenly in a half circle and started to lead Tony towards Nat's office, babbling excitedly all the way.

"...and I made these _awesome_ projectile launchers, you just strap 'em to your wrists and fire, and ba-bing! You gotta rope! So I've gotta keep working on them because otherwise they gonna rip my arms off, but I was wondering if you'd take a look, you know, if you've got time-"

"In here?" Tony asked as they approached the door, if only to get the boy to shut up. He knew his way around and Parker knew it, so he took the hint, shut his mouth, and nodded. "Good. Hang in there, kid." Tony took a sip of his drink, toasted Parker, and opened the door.

Nat didn't look too good.

“You don’t look so hot, Nattie,” he said, taking a seat across from her. She had a bottle of whisky in one hand, a cigarette in the other, and a glare that could melt diamond. Tony flicked open the button of his jacket and slumped back in the chair, swallowing all the rest of his Scotch in one. It burned on the way down and he sighed and sniffed.

“What are you doing here?” Nat snapped, without preamble. Tony took a while to answer. Casing the room quickly. She’d remodelled, and there was a puddle of broken glass and orange alcohol drops beneath one of the windows, and a full ashtray on her desk in front of her.

“I heard about your little...adventure,” he said, finally, and Nat’s glare turned cold. Tony tipped his head back and kicked his feet up on her desk; it had been a long drive. “Heard about S.H.I.E.L.D. Heard about Maria Hill.” Nat stiffened, very slightly. If she hadn’t been drinking, it wouldn’t have been noticeable at all. Bingo. “So I went to the trouble of making some precautions, if that’s what you’ll call it.” Nat was watching him very closely.

“I thought you said it was business, not murder,” she replied, her voice soft with apprehension. Tony spread his hands.

“Why would I lie to you?”

“Cause you’re a no good sonofabitch,” she growled, unexpectedly, and Tony laid a hand over his heart in mock grief.

“Words hurt, doll.”

“Start talkin’ before I have Yelena impale you.” He laughed, whipping his kerchief from his pocket and leaning forward to polish his shoe with it. Then he sat back again, this time with a benevolent smile.

“I enlisted Doctor Banner. He was only too eager to help: S.H.I.E.L.D have hacked a lotta people off-“

“You planted Bruce in S.H.I.E.L.D?” She was sitting ramrod straight now, bottle forgotten, cigarette hanging loosely from her fingers. “You crazy?” Tony rolled his eyes, perfectly at ease.

“I didn’t _plant_ him anywhere. He took a little daytrip to the Triskelion mediward with his girlfriend.”

“Waynesboro?”

“The very same.” Natasha sat back again, gesturing for him to go on.

“And?”

“Your precious little Agent Hill is alive,” he drawled.

“I don’t care about Hill,” Nat replied impatiently. There was a flush on her cheek that said otherwise, but Tony didn’t press it. “What about Hydra? What about Red? I made promises, Stark. I wanna hear about _them_.” Her eyes were slightly wilder than before, and she paused for a second to have a drink, straight from the bottle. Tony frowned.

"My business is my business, Nat."

"You ain't drive all the way from LA to tell me that Hill is alive. I want somethin' better'n that."

"Who'd you make promises to?" Tony asked, stretching his arms behind his head. "Barnes?" He spat the name out, not wishing for the bitter taste that accompanied it. Nat huffed out a small cloud of smoke.

"Among a lot of others." The silences hung heavy between them for a second, and then Tony relented.

"S'far as I know, S.H.I.E.L.D have all the dons up in chains. You're free, Nat." She didn't say anything, and he ran a finger around the rim of his empty glass. "I wouldn't count on S.H.I.E.L.D leaving you alone, though." This time, she laughed, bitter and loud.

"S.H.I.E.L.D are the least of my concerns, don't you worry. Have another drink, yeah?" She waggled the bottle of whisky at him and Tony grinned and offered her his glass. This night was looking up, at last.

∆

"Will you stop pacing, Pio?" Wanda snapped, for what had to be the twentieth time that night. Pietro raised his leg and braced his foot forward against the grey wall of the holding cell, scuffing it with his worn-out sneaker.

"I have to do _something_ ," he growled. "Or I will turn crazy."

"You don't need to worry," she replied, settling her head against the back of the bench. "We will tell them everything, and they will let us go."

"It won't be that simple."

"It will," she said, closing her eyes. "Trust me."

Pietro huffed and kicked the wall once more, then threw himself down on the bench beside her, elbows on his knees, hands tipping his face this way and that. He may have been older, but he was childish and restless all the time. Wanda detested having to tell him off.

"He doesn't want us," Pietro mumbled after a few minutes, and Wanda's eyes snapped open again.

"What do you mean?"

"Our father. Maximus. Magnus. Erik. Whatever his name is, now. He never came for us." He crossed his arms, and Wanda turned to him and gripped his cheek with talon-like nails, shaking him painfully to knock some sense into his thick head.

"Listen to me, Pio. He is our only hope in this hole of a country, do you hear? Do you want to go to child prison?"

"No," he grumbled, muffled by the squish of his own cheek. Wand let him go and he rubbed at the nail marks on his face, brows furrowed. "You're mean."

"I'm practical. Shut up and let me sleep."

"I'm older than you."

"You should act more like it, then." He didn't reply, and Wanda folded her hands on her lap and waited for a while. Waited, until there was a sudden noise, the slap of boots from behind the door of the cell.

"Knock, knock." Instantly, they were both on their feet, staring through the dim lighting at the person rattling the handle on the other side. Pietro stepped in front of Wanda, squaring his shoulders.

"Who is it?" he called. The lock scraped and clicked, and then the door swung inwards and a man in S.H.I.E.L.D's dark blue uniform tucked a ring of keys into his belt and beckoned them forwards.

"You've got some talking to do, kiddies," he said, with that awful New York accent. "Come on. Agents Barton and Garrett want a word." Pietro saved a glance for Wanda, and she nodded very slightly. Together, the twins stepped forward.

∆

Agent Barton was deaf, and jokey. Agent Garrett was scarred, and stone-eyed. It was clear very quickly that they didn't like each other.

Wanda talked. Pietro glared and fidgeted and tugged on his ragged hair.

"Our father is Erik Lehnsherr," she started, proudly, before the two agents had time to say anything. "We came to find him."

"We know," Garrett said roughly. Wanda blinked. "Why d'you think you're here instead of in a court room?" Pietro stilled, and turned his head ever so slightly towards her. Wanda tightened her lips and narrowed her eyes.

"We're not going to court," she said, prim. Agent Barton snorted.

"How's that, then? I think we're sorted here, John," he said. Garrett didn't even move, and Wanda frowned, ready to leave.

"So we can go?" Pietro asked, already half-way from his seat, but Garrett scowled.

"Sit down, kid. He's a joker. He's foolin'. We're not here to listening to your pea-cocking, alright? You've been mixed up with Nazis and smugglers, and if you don't comply, juvie's a-waitin'. See?" 

_Comply_.

 _Are you ready to comply, Miss Maximoff_?

 _The Scarlet Witch_.

Pietro was white-faced beside her, and Barton was looking between them anxiously.

"Whassamatter?" Barton asked, head twitching this way and that.

Wanda's muscles were rock-still. Garrett tilted his head.

"Yes, sir," she whispered, hating the tremble in the voice.

"Good," Garret growled. "Get outta here, Barton. I got this from here." A smile crept across Garrett's face, then crawled away, and Wanda hated him fiercely, but there was nothing she could do.

She had to comply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment for review + feedback!


	3. Mechanical Slip-Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maria's back on light active duty, but not where she wants to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blood warning!! Murder. Nasty.

Sure, they'd put her back on duty. Sure, they'd given her work to do and a puzzle to figure through and a good partner to help her think. Sure, they'd lifted bed rest and given her back her gun and her uniform and shoved her back into action in New York city, but it wasn't enough.

She didn't want to be solving murders right now.

She wanted to be solving threatening doctor's notes, white-faced Russian twins, and the conundrum that was Natalia Romanova.

To be fair, the murder was a good one. Almost good enough to take her mind off a pair of savage-sharp eyes and a soft, low voice.

The NYPD had been stumped by it, as per usual, so they'd radioed in for S.H.I.E.L.D help, and Fury put Maria and Agent Thirteen on the case. Sharon Carter, one of the babies of S.H.I.E.L.D. A legacy, niece of the Director, but surprisingly not a bitch about it.

Maria had protested, only because she'd seen Barton and Garrett go in to interview the Maximoffs, but Fury had been adamant. When Maria had continued to refuse, he'd called in goddamn Assistant Director Howard Stark to convince her. So now, Maria was slumped grumpily in a chair, waiting to be thoroughly told off and sort of wishing she'd never let it get this far.

Stark threw himself carelessly into the chair across from Maria and offered her a very dark glance.

"Agent Hill, can we make this quick?" he drawled, swiping a finger over his moustache. "I have a drink and a pile of paperwork waiting for me in my office."

"Yes, sir," she mumbled. Sometimes she wondered how Stark had even clawed his way to Assistant Director, what with the day-drinking and secretary-ogling (and his mafia don son), but she guessed that was a perk of being a genius and Margaret Carter's closest ally.

"You're taking this case, because Agent Fury asked you to. He is your superior officer. You have to listen to him, up until he gives you an unlawful order." He sighed and loosened his tie. "Does this seem like an unlawful order to you, Agent Hill?"

"No, sir." He was being thickly condescending, and Maria almost had it in her furious state of mind to report him, but then she realised she was being ridiculous and selfish and unprofessional. It wasn't like he was hitting on her, although by the state of his red rimmed eyes, if she sat here any longer, he might start doing so. Maria made up her mind to end this as quickly as possible.

"So, when Agent Fury asks you once more to take on this case with li'l Sharon Carter, whatcha gonna do?" Stark pressed, lolling his head to the side with a pout. Maria held back the urge to punch him in the nuts.

"I'll agree," she replied tightly. Stark smiled with all his teeth and leapt from his chair, straightening his trousers.

"Good girl. Dismissed." And he marched out before she could say anything more.

∆

Detective Ross was very obviously displeased with S.H.I.E.L.D taking over his case. He voiced his complaints, too, as he led them around the scene, and Sharon humoured him, mildly bored. Maria simply ignored him, already setting her mind spinning.

The woman was face-down in her own blood, three knife wounds in her back. No knife left on the crime scene. She'd fallen forwards straight from where she was standing, as the carpet behind her feet was covered in drops of blood, the spray from when the knife had been shoved in and out repeatedly.

"Can I have the name of the victim?" Sharon asked politely, flipping open her notebook. Detective Ross scrunched up his nose, and deliberated for a second until he caught the hard glare Maria was giving him, and then he practically tripped over himself to give Sharon all the information she needed.

The woman's name was Whitney Frost. Maria had seen her on the news a few times, in the tabloids, flaunting her wealth and her beauty and trying to duck out from under the shadow of her father's organisation, the Maggia. In all honesty, she wasn't surprised that the woman was dead: she’d learnt from all her studying of Romanov’s life that being connected to any mafia in America put a very large, very specific type of target on your back.

“Security cameras were all busted,” Ross was saying, and Sharon was nodding and noting it down. She was doing well, Maria observed. Staying silent and letting Ross seemingly take the lead so that he’d work better with them. Sharon was a good agent, despite being so new. “She has- had security guards at the gates to the drive: both killed, knife wounds, too.”

“How many?” Maria interrupted. Ross looked somewhat startled.

“I didn’t count,” he said, after he’d recovered himself, a little snappishly.

“We’ll get the autopsy report, after, then,” said Sharon smoothly, and Ross carried on speaking. Maria glared around the crime scene once more. This was a waste of her time. Of all the agents, except maybe Barton, she was probably the most qualified to go chasing down Romanova, and that was where she should be.

“Frost was alone in her house. She’d been watching The Veil, the television was still going when we got here.”

“Were you contacted?” Sharon asked. “How long did it take you to get here?”

“Yes, a garbled telephone call from Frost, herself. Not understandable, but we think she managed to get to the phone before she was killed, maybe she saw the killer coming up the drive.” 

“But her professional security team didn’t notice until it was too late?” Sharon clarified dryly. Ross went a little pink, and shrugged, obviously miffed that his theory had been disproved.

“We arrived ten minutes after the call,” he replied, fixing his tie very, very straight.

“Did Miss Frost turn the television on herself?” Maria butted in. Ross gave her a very narrow look.

“I already clarified that there were no other persons in the house, Agent,” he said, and Sharon sighed.

“Did you take fingerprints?” she asked, and Ross reddened.

“Halley!” he barked, over Maria’s shoulder. “Take fingerprints from the television.” Then he turned back to them. “Will that be all, ladies?”

“Not quite,” Sharon replied. “Does Miss Frost not own any kitchen knives?”

“What?” snapped Ross, obviously impatient to get rid of them. Maria’s eyes alighted on the kitchen, over to their right. Clean and fashionably furnished. But Sharon was right; there was not a single knife in the knife block, and no scissors on the rack of kitchen instruments. Ross whirled around, and gave a little scuffing sigh. “Oh.”

“Interesting,” Sharon noted, scribbling on her pad once more. Maria hid a smile at this clever, dry woman who’d turned out to be ten times smarter than pretty much all of the other baby agents.

“Can I inspect the body?” Maria asked, and Ross dithered for a second, obviously wondering if he should deny her.

“Of-of course,” he spluttered, after a second, and then he turned away to converse in furious whispers with another detective.

The blood was spreading out of the three wounds in Frost’s back, sure, but the puddle of sickening red had spread further and more irregularly than it should have. Maria knelt by the body, snapping on a pair of gloves, and gently lifted Frost’s pale, stiffening arm from the soaked carpet. She turned it over, and the underside was blood-slicked and drying, and Maria wrinkled her nose in disgust at the awful sight; someone had hacked something into Frost’s skin, a number, or a symbol. Maria squinted closer, ignoring the awful cloying, decaying smell of hours-old blood, and made out the numbers: one, slash, ten. What kind of a psychopath...

“Hey, Maria.” Maria dropped the arm and stood, swivelling, something in the back of her mind recognising that voice. Carol Danvers smirked at her, hair in curls, hands in the pockets of her pants. That cocked glint in her eye. Maria ripped off her gloves and turned away, cursing fate and luck and Fury.

“That’s _Agent_ ,” she said stiffly, throwing her gloves in the garbage bag on the edge of the scene. “What are you doing here?” Carol hissed through her teeth, tipping her head to one side.

“Cold, Maria. I was hired, why d’you think?” Her voice was teasing and friendly, but Maria wasn’t in the mood. The relationship between Agent Hill and Private Investigator Danvers was non-existent, aside from the occasional meeting at work, and Maria was glad to keep it that way. Maria and Carol, however, had known each other since middle school, had struggled through high school together, had skipped university in favour of each other’s company, had been rejected from the army together. Then it had turned into competition when it had Maria joined S.H.I.E.L.D, and Carol, being Carol, loved to be as annoying as possible whenever they met. She always proclaimed it was because ‘that blush you get, Maria, it’s cute’. Maria suspected differently.

“Who by?” Maria asked, trying to be civil for once, but it didn’t work, being growled through gritted teeth and all. 

“Confidential. Mind if I take a look at the dead girl?”

“Mind being professional for once in your damn life?” Maria replied harshly. She could see Sharon watching her from the corner of her eye.

“You think Frost’s giving us a clue?” Carol asked, nodding towards the television, and Maria narrowed her eyes.

“The Veil?”

“Good show.”

“You’re talking about the Ghost. Scott Lang and his friends,” Maria realised. Carol lifted an eyebrow very slightly.

“Now we’re getting somewhere.”

“You think an ex-S.H.I.E.L.D robber did this?”

“She’s not a robber, Maria,” Carol sighed, mock-condescending. “She’s a killer for hire. Remember?”

“She didn’t kill for S.H.I.E.L.D,” Maria replied defensively, and Carol rolled her eyes.

“Right. ‘Course, your precious S.H.I.E.L.D would never arrange for _anyone’s_ death, hm? Not Ivan Vanko. Not Niko Constantin. Not Black Widow.” Maria kept her poker face with stiff difficulty, and Carol shrugged. “Whatever. You done here? I need to get to work.”

“Knock yourself out,” Maria replied very ready to leave, and Carol gave her that bright, devilish grin. Did she miss that smile? Maybe she did. But there was a different smile on her mind right now. Furious and soft and all kinds of cunning.

“See you ‘round then, babydoll. May the best girl win.”

∆

“They slipped up,” Sharon said, bent over the file on the table. Maria was on her fifth coffee, and the night was dragging by.

“They did,” she said, still nursing regret at her momentary lapse of composure with Carol. In front of Sharon and the NYPD, no less.

“The television,” Sharon said. “Whitney Frost’s fingerprints were on the television. So was her blood.”

“They left her to bleed out?” Maria speculated.

“Autopsy shows she choked on her own blood. Asphyxiation. Collapsed lung. She must have been alive for a while after the wounds. Give her time to think, she was clever, time to leave a message.”

“So why wasn’t she lying by the television?”

“The NYPD said they got a ‘phone call from her,” Sharon replied. Maria frowned.

“She wasn’t by the telephone, either,” Maria countered. Sharon grunted in annoyance, and cast aside the autopsy report.

“Alright. What about the taking the knives thing? Is that someone’s calling card? I’m not well versed in the signature killers around New York, yet.”

“Hmm,” Maria said, sipping her coffee. “You could go and check the walking killers files.” Sharon looked at her.

“Why don’t you?” she grumbled. “I just got comfy.”

“I’m your superior,” Maria replied with a grin. “That’s an order, Agent Thirteen.” Sharon made a face and got up, stretching her limbs, then made for the door. Maria turned back to the table, strewn with papers and files and photographs, and she resisted a yawn and frowned against the dull throb of an exhausted headache.

1/10. 

What could that mean?

Frost’s mutilated arm burned into her brain: the ragged skin, the still-seeping wound. That and all the coffee was making her a bit sick.

_“We’ve still got some dancing to do, Agent Hill.”_

_”You should never turn your back on a Black Widow, baby.”_

This had something to do with Romanova. It had to. She was in everything, worming her way into Maria’s work and her head and her rage. If no one would let her go after the Widow, she’d do it off the clock. Off the record.

_”God, go on and make me!”_

Maria kneaded her temples, groaning into her coffee cup.

_”You wanna see stupid?”_

The light winked and sputtered a bit, glaringly loud.

_”Chance.”_

Maria gritted her teeth and dragged the nearest file towards herself with one fingertip. If she could just figure out the killer...could it be Scott Lang and his gang of robbers? Hired, maybe. The Ghost...it was possible. The Captain had a lot of people under his thumb, and the Maggia was a rival to all three of the head Avengers, Tony Stark, Romanova and Steve Rogers. Now if she could prove it, the rest would be a piece of cake. She just had to draw the lines.

_”Ponder it. Hope to catch me in the act.”_

1/10.

Decimation: noun  
1\. the killing or destruction of a large proportion of a group or species.

2\. the killing of one in every ten of a group of people as a punishment for the whole group 

_”Ever heard of the Unlawful Seven? The Decimation?”_

“Son of a bitch,” Maria gasped, just as the door swung back open and Sharon walked in, arms full of thick files. “I’ve got it,” Maria said, swigging down the last of her cold coffee, and Sharon dumped the files on the table, eyes wide.

“Really?”

“Ever heard of the Decimation?” Maria asked, scrabbling through the papers on the table to find the right set. Sharon frowned, bottom lip sticking out in thought.

“No...”

“Nor me. Well, once, in passing. Can you radio Barton?”

“Sure. Going to tell me what this is about?” Sharon asked, pulling out her radio.

“The Avengers,” Maria said grimly. “They slipped up.”

∆

Barton groaned and sunk his head into his hands.

“Hill-“

“I know what you’re going to say.”

“No, you don’t,” he replied, and now, his eyes were stony. Maria shut her mouth. “You don’t know what you’re walking into. You _have_ to trust me on this, alright?”

“Barton-“

“She always has an endgame,” he interrupted desperately. His voice was low and his words were mixing together in his rush to get them all out. “She’s more dangerous, far more dangerous than you think. Trying to kill you is the least she can do.” Maria pressed the pads of her fingers into the table and stared hard at the photograph of Frost’s slashed-up arm. “Hill, you can’t fall for it. She always gets what she wants, and I’ll be damned if I’ll lose you again!” He was trembling with white anger now. “I’m not putting anyone in her line of fire, not anymore. She’s someone else’s problem. You won’t get out of this one alive.” He sighed, his breath shaking, and Maria looked at the wall instead of Barton’s drawn face.

“Barton, this is the Decimation. They’ve finally slipped up, and we can get on this-“

“You don’t know that,” Barton said plaintively. “You _can’t_ know that.”

“I think she’s right,” said Sharon quietly, leaning her hip against the table, arms crossed.

“I’m sorry, Carter, but what the hell do you know?” Barton snapped, suddenly. Sharon looked at him with very dark eyes.

“I used to know the Mechanic,” she said, and a thick silence fell on the room like a sack. “When I was a kid. He’s not much older than you, Hill. He used to babysit me.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Barton replied, but he sounded less sure.

“The Ghost,” she said. “The knife thing. I looked through the hired killer cases, and all the potentially _hired_ ones have one thing in common. They take the knives. And when Tony Stark babysat me, he used to hide all the knives in the house because all he wanted to do was take a smoke outside, and leave me to my own devices.”

“You think he thought of a calling card,” Maria said slowly. “One that couldn’t be traced, except through a kid he doesn’t know anymore. He likes messing with people. ‘Specially the brass.”

“That’s right,” Sharon said. Maria looked at Barton. Barton hissed a sigh.

“So, we think it’s the Ghost?”

“You were an Avenger, Barton,” Maria said. “If anyone can confirm this, that they’re starting the Decimation and the Ghost is the one behind it, it’s you.” Barton looked at her from under his eyelashes. “I need you on this,” she pleaded. Barton chewed on his lip, tugged on his scrappy stubble, rubbed the back of his neck. Finally, he sighed.

“Fine.” He glared at the table, then pressed the heel of his hand to the bridge of his nose. “Fury better not find out about this.”

∆

One down. Nine to go. The Maggia was in shreds, their leader distraught, and Natasha was finally having a good night.

“To the Ghost,” she said, toasting the others, and all five of them raised their glasses in a salute.

“To the Ghost,” they all echoed.

“What do we do about Barton?” asked Steve, tipping his drink down his throat. Natasha twisted her lip to one side.

“Is it just him we need to worry about?” Bruce cut in, eyeing the others. “What about Agent Hill?”

“I can take care of Hill,” Natasha said, before anyone could say anything. Steve and Tony shared a glance. “I’ll put Barnes on Barton, too. Don’tcha worry.” Steve and Tony had another look, but it was different this time, barely noticeable, and Natasha flicked her glance away to give them a semblance of privacy. “But we need one more guy. Make up for losin’ Barton.”

“Or,” Steve said, “we could re-band the Avengers.” Natasha stiffened. Bruce bit his lip nervously.

“That’s a bad idea,” said Tony. Steve shrugged.

“Why? We’ve got T’Challa, it’s an even half-dozen.” T’Challa narrowed his eyes.

“You would have me as an Avenger?” he asked, taken aback.

“Course we would,” Natasha cut in. “But the Avengers broke up a while ago. It was volatile. Dangerous.”

“And the Unlawful Seven is a better idea?” Steve shot back. Natasha shrugged.

“Different goals. Different organisation. Could be a new start.”

“We could add my brother.” They all turned to look. Thor had been silently, moodily nursing his drink for the better part of the meeting, but now he was looking around, glass eye swivelling in his socket. “He would be a good addition to the goal of the Decimation. Banner, you agree, don’t you?” Bruce seemed to be appreciating the way Thor’s arms bulged against the fabric of his suit rather than listening to anything Thor was saying, but he did his best to answer.

“Yes, wonderful idea. A good addition.” He drank quickly from his glass, and Tony shrugged.

“Alright. Cap? What d’you say about the addition of another European?” he asked. Steve ran his nails through his beard.

“Depends. Do we get the Valkyrie on our side?”

“The Valkyrie fights anywhere I do,” Thor growled. “She has always been on our side.” Steve nodded. 

“Then it’s settled. Tony, I want the Ghost on Constantin and Strucker, in their cells. However she wants to do it. Natasha, take Hill and Barton out of the equation as quick as possible. Thor, tell Loki he’s in, but I want him to _behave_. And T’Challa...welcome to the Unlawful Seven. Good to have you with us.”

∆

When Agent Barton had rushed from the room, Garrett had turned the full force of that creeping smile on the two of them, and Wanda had forced herself to scowl, to bare her teeth and snarl. He’d only laughed, however, and the next second, there were dark hoods over their faces and strong arms were manhandling the two of them down empty corridors, through doors and halls and then, like a slap to the face, out into the open night.

Wanda tried not to cry, she could hear Pietro’s ragged breathing beside her, and the slam of car doors, the horrid noise of New York’s traffic. Garrett’s barking voice.

“Pierce said two hours! Get your lazy asses in gear! Rumlow, am I paying you to stand around?”

“No, sir.”

“Naw, I am not! Ward, get these two in the car. Rollins, are ya keepin’ watch?”

“Yes, sir,” came a fuzzy voice, from a radio. Then there was the dark warmth of a car, slippery leather seats, the smell of automobile oil. Wanda whimpered beneath the hood, and in the dark, as the car started, Pietro reached for her hand.

The car juddered down streets, fast and rough, and Pietro and Wanda bounced around in the back seat, in utter silence until- BANG! BOOM!

Wanda screamed. Pietro roared in terror, metal screeched and the car skidded with a squeal of rubber on road. They rocked, turned, tipped, and Wanda fell on top of Pietro, both of them squishing up against the window, crying and struggling, bound and helpless. Something wrenched and shrieked atop of them, like a car door being ripped off, then cool night air and a hand on Wanda’s shoulder and she was hauled bodily from the car and thrown to a hard, cold concrete floor.

BANG, BANG!

Wanda curled into a ball, whimpering, and Pietro landed somewhere to her right with a pained grunt, and the gunfire, if that was what it was, rattled on. 

Footsteps, hard and clicking, by her head, and then she was pulled roughly into a sitting position and the hood was ripped off her head. Wanda raised her tear stained, messy face, to the light of a diner sign, and a man with Pietro’s eyes was staring down at her. The gunfire crackled, in the distance, and Wanda flinched, but the man with Pio’s eyes put a heavy hand on her shoulder, and gave her a heavy smile that she sometimes saw in the mirror, and some different kind of tear ran down her face then.

“Hello, darling,” he said. “Wanda, my child. The X are here for you. I am here for you. You’re safe with us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Howard Stark 🤢 Ross 🤢 NYPD 🤢
> 
> Also i know the Veil was shown in 1958: pls just allow me this one historical inaccuracy k? Besides, this is an AU. In this AU the Veil premiered in 1951. There that clears it up :)
> 
> And my writing has taken a dip, ik, i swear the next chapter will be written better!!!!


	4. Mechanical Hold-Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maria and Natasha meet again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey he hEy I’m back ehe 
> 
> So if you’re wondering where the bit with BUcky’s wedding ring went, i edited it out. This is not stucky anymore its stony :) wanted to try my hand at it. Also read a fic by **isawet** , stony central, and loved it so... go check them out, they're incredible!!

"There's so much we don't know," Barton groaned, tipping forward to rest his head on the table, his ear narrowly missing his eighth mug of coffee. Maria had been counting. She should cut him off soon. "Who hired Danvers?" Barton mumbled into the table. "Why would they showcase the Decimation? Have they actually slipped up, or are we just chasing their wake?"

"Forget Danvers for a minute," Maria said. "Our priority has to be to stop the Decimation. You're sure you never found out the targets?"

"That information was privy to Romanova, Stark and Rogers only," Barton droned, for what had to be the hundredth time that night. Maria had slipped into asking the same questions again and again, and she knew that was a sign of them running in circles.

"We should take a break," Sharon offered. Barton stared blankly at the tabletop, and Maria sighed.

"You're probably right."

"Or, at least get someone else in on this," she suggested, and Barton sat up, very straight.

"We don't have enough information," he said. "I don't wanna get fired."

"She's right," Maria repeated, and Barton frowned at her. She tilted her head. "Barton, come on. Don't be dramatic. You won't get fired for digging through a case."

"I'll get fired for neglecting duty," he grumbled. "Garrett shoved me outta the Maximoff room and all I got was Erik Lehnsherr's damn name. As if I didn't already know-"

"God _damn_!" Maria crowed suddenly, lunging across the table for the photograph of the crime scene.

"What? What?" Sharon asked, scooting over in her chair.

"She died where she fell," Maria hissed. A spray of blood, behind her feet. The curve of a pair of shoes, imprinted as negative space in the carpet. The killer's shoes had caught the spray, and Whitney Frost hadn't moved anywhere.

"What?" Sharon groaned, again. "That's just twisting the web. Now we have _nothing_."

"Square one," Barton added glumly, tipping his chair back and balancing precariously on the points of the legs. Maria scoffed.

"Just you wait. Give me an hour. Go on, go and get coffee. Go home. Go to the toilet. Come back and I'll have it." Barton and Sharon shared a glance.

"She needs to take a nap," Barton mumbled from the side of his mouth, and Sharon's lips twitched in amusement. Maria pushed a hand through her bedraggled bun and fixed him with a cold glare.

"I'll have it," she promised, but Barton made a rude sound and sighed.

"Go _home_ , Hill. We'll all go home, and then in the morning, I'll bring Coulson in on it."

"What, you need all night to convince him?" Maria teased. Barton pretended not to hear, and instead busied himself with stacking the files haphazardly in the middle of the table.

"Are we done for the night, then?" Sharon asked, through a wide yawn, and Maria scowled.

"Fine. Let's go home. But we're straight back on this in the morning, right?" she demanded, pointing an accusing finger at Barton. He slapped it away playfully and grinned at her thunderous face.

"Yeah, yeah. Honestly, Hill. If I wasn't here, you'd be bone-dead from work already."

"You're not my babysitter, Barton," Maria replied, unfolding her creaking muscles from the positions they'd been holding all day. Her clothes were creased from various chairs, her hair was a mess, and she was willing to bet that her eyelids were blue with lack of sleep. She probably looked like a zombie. Sharon, on the other hand, could have walked straight from the room onto the red carpet: crisp hair rolls, sharp shirt and skirt, and makeup still so pristine it could freeze water.

She must have taken lessons from her aunt.

Maria grabbed her coat, taking her eyes off perfect little Sharon for a second, and made for the door, sweeping Barton's stacked-up coffee cups into the trash can as she did so.

The corridors of S.H.I.E.L.D's New York headquarters were bright and cold and empty as they made their way to the back entrance. All the agents had long since gone home, and the night staff cast them curious looks as they let themselves out.

"Getta cab, yeah, Carter?" Barton said as they stepped onto the street, rummaging through his backpack. "Aw, no. Left my damn mug upstairs. Hill, you coming?" Sharon, hailing down a late cab, turned back, one foot in the street, and Maria shook her head, casting her eyes down. Just so she couldn't get caught in their stares.

"I'll walk. I've got a lot on my mind," she explained. Barton shifted nervously.

"You sure? Streets ain't exactly safe."

"I think I can handle myself, Hawkeye," Maria said dryly, flicking the front of her coat to one side to flash him a glimpse of her revolver, still tucked safely in its holster. Barton shrugged.

"Alright."

"See you tomorrow," Sharon called, as the cab drew up. Maria nodded, the others climbed into the cab and drew away, and the street sighed into a distant silence. Somewhere in the city, she could hear music: teenagers out late dancing, maybe. Maria stuffed her cold hands into her pockets and started walking home.

∆

“You don’t think she’s gone get it done.” Tony jumped, accidentally flicking ink onto his tie, smudging his signature into an unrecognisable cloud. Steve leant casually against the doorframe.

“ _Jesus_ , Rogers,” Tony spluttered, wiping ink from his wrist. Steve raised an eyebrow, and Tony’s heartbeat calmed just a little. “For a big man, you sure can sneak up on me.”

“You ain’t answer my question,” Steve proclaimed, pushing off the frame with his hip and walking across the room, soft-footed. To the bookcase. If Tony didn’t know better, he’d think he would have seen a flicker of longing in Steve’s eye as he brushed one finger over the expensive spines. Tony flattened one grease-slick strand of hair back against his head.

“Do you?”

“I trust Nat,” Steve replied, turning slowly away from the books. He fixed Tony with a jaded stare, and Tony looked away. Steve had perfected that look: ice that no one could hold. One of the things that had built him into the Captain.

“No, you don’t,” Tony scoffed. “And she doesn’t trust any of us.” He rearranged his watch and sighed. “Probably for the best. We almost killed her. And I’m not even gonna _mention_ Bruce-“

“Tony,” Steve interrupted. “On task?”

“You know, Steve,” Tony started, trying to push the strain from his voice, “You want my opinion? Is that what ya want?”

“Be a nice change from the bullshit you’re famous for,” Steve replied, absolutely deadpan. It just raised Tony’s ire even further.

“Alright,” he said, pushing away his chair and standing. He regretted it almost immediately; Steve was a good foot taller than him. “My opinion, huh? My opinion is _this_ : the Unlawful Seven? Volatile. Stupid. Risky. The Widow? She’s gettin’ further away from us every day. She’s off on her own, now. And you...” Tony faltered: that ice gaze again, like it could split his skull, crack it open and sift coldly through what was inside. “Your Soldier? He needs to fuckin’ well retire!” Nothing. Steve stared down at him, perfectly calm, huge and beautiful and imposing.

“Alright,” he said, finally, and when it didn't seem like he was about to pull a gun, Tony relaxed. He threw his hands up and slumped dramatically back into his seat.

“Careful what you wish for, Cap,” he muttered, pushing down a blush.

“I think I got ‘zactly what I wished for,” Steve said. He crossed his arms, and his shoulders thickened against the fabric of his jacket. “How’s Keener?”

“Yet to know,” Tony replied. “I’m gonna see him tomorrow. You’re...welcome to tag on, you know. I know you two don't get along, but it could be a-“

“I think I’m okay,” Steve cut in, and Tony blinked at his ruined signature.

“Ouch, Cap.”

“Sorry.” A hint of a repentant smile flashed over Steve’s face. “He’s a good kid. Kinda reminds me of me, ya know...younger.”

“Skinny Steve,” Tony teased gently, and Steve rolled those ice-blue eyes.

“Awright, awright.” They grinned at each other for a second.

“About Nat,” Tony said, and Steve’s smile fell. 

“Yeah?”

“We gotta keep an eye on her.”

“I’ll put Vision on it.”

“She can’t find out.”

“I’ve got it,” Steve reassured. “You hear about the X?”

“The kids? Yeah. What’s that got to do with anything?” Tony asked. Steve looked at him for a long moment, like he was trying to peel back Tony’s skin. Maybe he wouldn’t mind, though.

“Don’t worry,” Steve said, and he turned to go.

“Steve,” Tony said, before he could stop himself. Steve’s huge frame paused in the doorway.

“Yeah?” he asked, over his shoulder. An afterthought. Tony sighed.

“Stay alive.”

“You got it, Mechanic.” And he left, slow and soft-footed and fading slowly.

∆

Her coat didn’t ward off the cold. Or maybe it was just goosebumps from the thought of blood and ghosts and impossible fingerprints. Maria huffed as she walked, puffed out her cheeks to warm her face up. She had a particular feeling, though, like someone was following her, and she’d been at S.H.I.E.L.D long enough to know how to trust that feeling.

One glance, over the shoulder, and then a hand on her arm and someone was shoving her sideways, struggling to push her down a thin pathway between two buildings to her left. Maria lost her footing and rolled, the end of her coat splashing through a puddle, and she came up on one knee with her gun in her hand and her bangs flopping forward into her face. 

A delicate pantsuit, long coat, and fresh black gloves. Romanova stumbled out of the puddle that Maria had rolled through, a disgusted look on her face, and flicked a thick red curl away from her eye.

Maria’s gun hand trembled.

Romanova smiled like a viper.

“Heya, sweetcheeks.”

“Romanova,” Maria managed, rasped more like. “I don’t need a reason to shoot you.”

“Butch’a still refraining,” Romanova replied, eyes wide, mockingly surprised. “Noble.” Maria cocked the gun, and Romanova tilted her head, condescendingly amused.

“What do you want?” Maria snapped. Romanova marched past her, heels clicking on the damp stone, further down the alleyway. Maria swivelled, and now her gun was trained right on Romanova’s back, a plain target, an easy shot. Romanova flicked a careless look over her shoulder, and when Maria didn’t move, she sighed and stopped.

“Oh, come on, Maria. I thought we were past all that.”

“You tried to kill me!” Maria spat. Romanova’s eye glittered for a second, but then a second later, it was gone. She turned to face Maria, fully, and Maria had to ignore the painful thrum of her own heart, stinging her ribs from the inside.

“And ya ruined my best gloves,” Romanova said, with a roll of her eyes. “Accidents happen. Forgive and forget, right?”

“What do you want?” Maria repeated, this time in a growl.

"A moment of your time," Romanova said coolly. The light of the moon was thinning her skin, turning it into paper. She looked ethereal, more terrifying than beautiful.

"You have thirty seconds to talk before I shoot you," Maria replied. Romanova flicked her tongue out and ran it over her bottom lip, then shrugged and smiled.

"I was told to kill you."

"By who?"

"Confidential," Romanova said, running her thumb over the near-invisible seam of her glove. "I came to warn you." Maria cocked the gun.

"Not really your style, Widow."

"Baby, you have _no idea_ what my style is," Romanova replied, with a wicked grin. Her teeth flashed like white stone in the dark.

"Twenty seconds," Maria said harshly, settling her finger on the trigger. Romanova rolled her eyes.

"All you gotta know, Maria, is I want you dead, from now on." Romanova stepped forwards, pressing her sternum into the barrel of the gun. The pressure of Romanova's body at the end of the weapon made Maria want to turn and run. Maria locked all her muscles, straining every sinew it took not to back away. She would not be afraid. But she couldn't hold that enchantment of a gaze for long.

"What else is new?" Maria asked, but her voice cracked and gave her away. Romanova picked that up, by the look on her lips- in her eyes. Of course she did.

"Scared, Hill?"

"You wish," Maria spat, her tongue twisting bitterly inside her mouth. Romanova's gloved hand came up, up, and she curled her fingers around Maria's hand, the warmth of her skin horrifyingly close through her silken gloves. Maria bit down on the inside of her cheek. Romanova drew even closer, until Maria's arm was bent into her own chest, and their faces were barely a foot apart.

Her heartbeat was fast, her blood thrumming hot, close to her skin. This was something more than adrenaline, than fear. Too much to admit.

"Put it down," Romanova warned.

"You just threatened to kill me," Maria snapped.

"You're losing your composure, Hill."

"Shut up!" Maria moved, slamming the end of the gun into Romanova's forehead, hard enough to bruise. Romanova stayed still, but her eyes fluttered closed for half a moment. Maria removed one hand from the gun and reached inside her coat, searching blindly for her handcuffs.

"Looking for these?" Romanova asked, and with her free hand, she lifted Maria's handcuffs above her head. They gleamed like silver in the musty light. Maria had a second to regret every decision she'd made that night, and then Romanova wrenched the gun away, slammed her forehead into Maria's, stepped in and flipped Maria over her hip.

The world swung up and over and then Maria, dazed from the headbutt, slammed into a puddle with a spray of muddy water and a wet chill through the back of her coat.

She struck blindly, and the heel of her hand met Romanova's breast. Romanova grunted, wheezed, and Maria lifted her leg, hooked it around Romanova's knee, and flipped their positions. Romanova hit the damp ground, rolled, slipped out from under Maria's leg and then she was on her feet and running.

Maria scrabbled on the ground for her gun, fingers skinned by the rough brick, but the second she found it and brought it up to aim, Romanova had vanished into the night.

Maria lowered her weapon. The anger, the fear, the dazed confusion all faded, merged into one intoxication of a purpose: Romanova had to go.

∆

It wasn't a _conventional_ job. Well, to be honest, none of them really were _conventional_ , when Wade thought about it, but this one was kind of strange- the kind of job that would stir up unwanted attention if he made it as much fun as usual.

The window was open. Music was on: 20s jazz, smooth and classy. 

"Respect, Mr Coulson," Wade muttered, checking his watch. He reached for the sash, eased the window open a little more. The man, Coulson, was moving side to side at the kitchen counter, seasoning his food. Smelled good. "Whatcha cookin'?" Wade asked, chin in his hand, elbow on the window sill.

Coulson turned, quick as mercury, and _gun_ -

Wade rolled to the side, out of sight, as the weapon blasted, rocketed loud enough to wake the damn dead.

" _Not_ very friendly," Wade griped, and he gripped the side of the window frame and hauled himself through, landing in a diving roll inside the apartment kitchen. The bullets followed, biting the floor just behind his feet, and Wade launched himself behind the couch. "I'm pretty sure the recipe doesn't call for gunpowder!"

"Who are you?" Coulson snapped, from somewhere beyond the couch.

"Say something cool, Wade," Wade muttered. "Shit, can't think of anything." He slid a blade from his shoe, and a rope from his pocket, and rolled his shoulders. "Ya momma!" he yelled, and then he leapt over the sofa and crashed into Coulson and they both went down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wade Wilson!! I'm terrible at writing Wade, I'm sorry 😂
> 
> Anyways, comments (constructive) and kudos are very VERY welcome!!


	5. Mechanical Roll-Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hydra is still looming, but the armies of New York can, and will, unite.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm BACK

"I've got a job for you." Bucky damn near fell off the ladder, but he grabbed the pipe just in time and steadied the steps with his feet. He twisted, heart racing, cursing himself for not having been aware.

Natasha. She was tugging at the ends of her gloves, pulling each one off, and she laid them delicately over her arm. She was dressed for the cold outside, and she wasn't looking him in the eye.

Bucky gripped the sides of the ladder and started to make his steady way down.

He steadied himself on the ground, looking Natasha up and down.

"A job?"

"It won't be easy," Natasha said. She smoothed her gloves down on her wrist.

"It never is," Bucky replied. He ducked his head to try and catch her eye. "Natasha?"

"It's a hit," she said, staring around the workshop. "Gotta be untraceable."

"Did Stark put you up to this?" Bucky asked harshly, and this time Natasha actually looked at him.

"Does it matter?" she bit out. "I said I've got a job for you. Will you do it?" Bucky stared at her, taken aback by the outburst.

"Do I have a choice?" he asked. His metal fingers click-clacked impatiently. Natasha tilted her head backwards, and there was a gleam in her eye that Bucky didn't like.

"No. You don't."

∆

Vision was following her. He wasn’t being subtle about it, neither. Natasha kept her pace steady. She had things to do, and he was welcome to come along, just so long as he didn’t get in her way.

A gaggle of teenagers were smoking outside a laundromat ahead, voices and wisps of smoke climbing their way into the cool night sky. 

Natasha pressed her thumb into her collarbone, the imprint of Hill’s gun like a cold bruise. If she got back and there was a mark, she was going to drink herself blind. Goddamn Hill.

Peter was waiting at the jewellers, and Natasha made sure to check his pockets and the lock on the door. His sticky fingers had got her in trouble before. They started walking, left down a wider street, and a car passed them with stinging bright lights.

“Vision’s following you,” Peter said. 

“Don’t think I don’t know it,” Natasha griped. 

“What are we doing?”

“Keep quiet, alright?”

“Nat, I got some news.”

“I said keep quiet,” she hissed, as a man crossed to the opposite side of the street to avoid them. Peter had the good grace to look mildly abashed. “Can it wait?”

“No,” he said out the corner of his mouth. Natasha elbowed him in the ribs and he squeaked.

“Fine,” she said, eventually. “Good or bad?”

“That Coulson guy? From the blues fiasco?”

“That weren’t a fiasco,” Natasha replied. “I had it under control.” Peter raised an eyebrow at her, but his face was serious and her heart was sinking. “Yeah, I remember Coulson.”

“Wilson snapped his locks and bagged him.”

“Wilson?” Natasha said, shock building in her throat. Peter stared at her and she rearranged her face. “Kidnapped him?”

“Yeah,” Peter said gravely. “I got there like a second before the cops, I had to beat feet real slick. I weren’t seen,” he added quickly.

“I bet you weren’t. How many people know?”

“Well, he’s a secret agent, in’t he? Barely on the news, but I bet S.H.I.E.L.D know.”

“How long ago?”

“Barely an hour.”

“The Captain? He know?”

“Nah. No Avengers know. No spiders. I’d give a dollar Stark does, though.”

“Alright,” Natasha said, masking the spinning her brain was doing. “Alright, good man. Okay, down here.” They turned left down the alley between the baker and the empty flat, and Natasha’s heel’s clicked on the uneven concrete. There was a parking lot at the back, weedy and crumbling, bits of chain link fence bowing around the edges.

“My money’s on the commies,” Peter said after a quiet second, and Natasha shook her head.

“Red are gone, trust me,” she said, rolling the bitterness of the words around in her mouth. “They’re dust without Niko. And he’s boutta be dust, too.”

“Ain’t that a bite,” Peter said, with a frown. “I was for sure.”

“Be glad they’re gone,” Natasha said darkly, and Peter fell silent for a second.

“Ain’t that building off the lease?” Peter asked as they approached the back door.

“You seem anti-frantic for such a small guy in such a dark place,” Natasha replied teasingly, and Peter glared at her. She wriggled the handle, and the door swung inwards with a horrific screech, darkness bulging from inside. “Hey, Matt.” Natasha reached inside and flicked on the light, and Matt turned his head to the vague direction of the door, a pale smile widening.

“Hey, Nattie.”

“Call me that again and you’re cruising for a bruisin’,” Natasha replied, almost instantly irked. “Come on in, Pete.”

“Hey, Mr Murdock,” Peter said, gangling into the room, all loose, nervous limbs.

“Hey, kid.” Matt was upright on a sofa pushed back against the peeling wall, his face smooth now, the smile vanishing quickly like always.

“You had the lights off,” Natasha said, throwing herself down beside him.

“Saves money,” Matt replied. “How’s the Spider-Manning, Parker?”

“It’s boss,” Peter said cheerfully, lowering himself into the other armchair. Natasha smiled to herself.

“Cool,” Matt said. “Nat, about the Maximoffs-“

“Don’t bug that,” Natasha interrupted. “Something else came up.” Matt nodded, his face still unerringly blank.

“Oh yeah? Brief me.”

“What d’you know about Wade Wilson? I’m talkin’ all his bread, what’s in his banks?” Peter had his chin in his hand, staring, distracted, at the desk across the room.

“He had a job a few months ago, but nothing since then.”

“Telegrams?” Natasha asked, trying very hard not to sound desperate. With Red gone and Hydra shrinking, there was no one to blame but her. She didn’t need S.H.I.E.L.D on her case right now. “Anything you can give me, Matt. I ain’t got time nor money to lose.”

∆

"You are asking for a war," T'Challa replied. Beside him, Thor crossed his arms with a grunt of agreement. Xavier sighed.

"I am not asking," he said. "Either your troops are ready, or they are taking up arms against me." There would be time, after this, to take on the Avengers, one by one, to take on the Killmonger, his vengeful cousin, to pick off all his enemies. T'Challa knew he had the power of New York in his back pocket. And what was one more battle? Besides, the army had been baying for blood for weeks. T'Challa smiled, baring his teeth.

"We are not refusing. Thor?"

"It seems like an honourable fight," Thor mused. "It will only end in rivers of blood." Xavier smiled back.

"That is what I am hoping for. I'll see you on the battlefield."

∆

“Solved it,” Danvers said, slapping a file down on Tony’s desk, on top of Nat’s letter. Tony stared at the file, the room shrinking to a very small space. 

“Enlighten me,” he said, and Danvers crossed her arms.

“Really?” she snapped. “You’re gonna play dumb now?”

“You’re the one who took a case from the Mechanic,” Tony replied. God, he was finished. How the hell had she solved it?

“You’re the one who hired the best PI in the tri-state area,” Danvers said, throwing herself into the chair on the opposite side of the desk.

"Modest, ain'tcha?"

"Why the fuck'd you hire me?" Danvers snapped.

"Watch your tone, lady," Tony warned, reaching for a cigarette, scanning her every move. "There's two bruisers outside that door, no doubt'a you seen 'em when you came in."

"I'm not scared of you, Stark," Danvers said lazily, twirling a blonde curl around one finger. Tony lit the cigarette and slid it between his teeth.

"Rookie mistake."

"Start talking," Danvers replied, tapping a long fingernail on the arm of her chair. Tony sat back, running through a list of a million things to say. There was a revolver on the low table beside his desk; one bullet and bye-bye Danvers. He was fast and she was loosely draped over the chair. Between the eyes.

Tony's fingers twitched towards the weapon. Danvers narrowed her eyes.

"God _damn_ ," Tony muttered, squeezing his eyes shut. "Fuck, you're good."

"Don't think you can keep me quiet."

"Don't think you can walk outta here alive after threatenin' me," Tony snapped.

Danvers opened her mouth to reply snappishly, but before she could start talking, there was an urgent knock on the door of the office and they both froze.

"Whaddaya want?" Tony snapped, eyes still resolutely trained on Danvers. She was tense now, one ankle hooked tightly around the leg of the chair.

The door clicked open and Harley stuck his head around it. He opened his mouth, and then his eyes fell to Danvers, and the words looked to get a little stuck.

"Spit it out," Tony said, reaching for a cigar. "My blood pressure's risin' just lookin' at you."

"It's the Professor," Harley managed, narrowing his eyes suspiciously at Danvers. "Professor X. He's here for you, and he says it can't wait." Tony licked his lips.

"Are ya kidding me?"

"No, sir," Harley said, straightening his cuffs. He seemed hacked off, and Tony knew why. He'd just gotten used to being top man.

"Alright. Let him in. Danvers-"

"Fire escape, got it," Danvers replied, rising from her chair. "We're not finished, Stark."

"Yeah, yeah," Tony grumbled. "I won't letcha forget it. Harley boy, get me a Scotch. God, could this day get any worse?"

∆

"Agent Coulson has been abducted," Director Carter said. Maria gaped at her, air sticking in her lungs. 

"What?" Clint choked from beside her. He slapped his aid a couple times. " _What_?"

 _Abducted_ , Carter signed, with a grave look on her face.

"Romanova," Maria said instantly, half-rising from her chair. It had to be her. If the Avengers were out for Maria's blood, it would make sense they'd hit out Coulson, too. But Carter raised a perfectly manicured hand, and Maria sank back down on instinct.

Clint's face was as grey as the wall.

"Assumptions lead to casualties," Carter said sharply. "We cannot afford any more battles with Romanova."

"Casualties?" Clint snapped, his signing getting frantic. "What about Coulson becoming a casualty? Can we afford that?" He stood with a scrape of his chair. 

_Sit down_ , Carter signed sharply, but Clint wasn't finished.

"He's one of our best goddamn agents! He is not collateral!"

"Sit down!" roared Carter, slamming a hand onto the desk, and Clint took a few steps back wards in shock. Maria's heart was in her mouth, her mind running so fast she feared it was overheating. Clint's chair seat took him out at the knees and he sat down, hard. Carter was paper-white now, and trembling with rage.

"I don't believe in collateral," she said, accompanying her words with sign language so precise it was like a knife, slashing the air. "Please believe that I do, in fact, have a vested interest in keeping _all_ my agents alive." Her voice was thunderously quiet, but Maria _knew_ , she knew and she couldn't let this pass.

"It's Romanova," she tried again, "I swear, Director-"

"Be quiet, Hill!" Carter snapped. "You will all _listen_ to me, right now, and you will do as you are told, and this time, you will not screw this up. _Is that understood_?" Clint wasn't listening. Behind Maria's shoulder, she saw all her team give quick nods, and Bishop reached out to put her hand on Clint's shoulder. "Hill?"

"Yes ma'am," Maria managed, through gritted teeth.

"Good," breathed Carter. "You are all here because you were the core of the last mission and to my knowledge, the few I can trust to take care of this." She glared at them, and if flames had ignited on Maria's cheeks from the Director's eyes, she wouldn't have been surprised. Marie sank further into her seat. "Agent Coulson's life is in danger. We have bare inches to operate here, without the government climbing up my arse to put S.H.I.E.L.D under inspection, therefore I expect you to conduct your jobs _within_ my orders."

 _Fat chance_ , Clint signed vehemently with his hidden hand, and Bishop dug her fingers into his collarbone. He twisted viciously and slapped her away. Carter ignored them both.

"The mission will be on your desks in eight minutes. Report to the armoury, then to briefing room three-oh-four, within half an hour. You are not to discuss any of these events with anyone outside of this room. _No one_." Carter hissed a breath out through her teeth, scanning them all with an eagle eye. Maria didn't break her gaze for even one second, frustration seething beneath her skin. "Dismissed."

∆

"Can I offer you a cigar?" Tony asked, once the door was closed. Xavier smiled benevolently.

"No, thank you. I don't smoke."

"Sure you don't," Tony muttered, sticking a lit one between his teeth. Damn Danvers had left the window open, and the dirty New York air was drifting into the room, bearing aloft all the traffic noises and the hungover groaning of a Saturday morning. He should still be in bed at this hour. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I don't know if you've heard about the Maximoffs," Xavier said, shuffling into a comfortable position and eyeing Tony beadily. Tony sneered.

"Listen, Xavier. I don't have time for your mind games, a'right? We know what we know, and we're gonna go with that. I'm a busy man, and I betcha you are too." He sucked on the cigar and gestured for Xavier to go on. It was too early for this shit, and goddamn, it was only ten o'clock.

"Then you have heard." Xavier folded his hands in his lap and stared at Tony, and Tony started to get that uncomfortable feeling like when Steve looked at him too long or too short, icy and intense. Like Xavier was trying to peel back his skin. "Erik Lensherr has taken them into his custody, claiming to be their father."

"He is their father," Tony interrupted. Xavier's eyes flickered with the barest amount of interest. "I know ya don't trust me, Xavier, but it's true."

"It's not really the domestics that I'm interested in," Xavier replied softly. Tony frowned, confused for a second, but then it dawned on him.

"They was in S.H.I.E.L.D custody," he said slowly. "You know how they got out."

"I do. I also know that a problem has grown from their escape, and our livelihoods are all in danger." Tony pulled the cigar from his mouth. There was fear in Xavier's voice, and that wasn't something Tony was used to hearing.

"And you want in this time?" he asked, masking frustration. "I seem to remember the X tryna stay out of affairs the last time this happened."

"That was when the Russians were still involved," Xavier replied. "I was protecting my people."

"I don't give a damn about your excuses," Tony snapped, pushing back anxiety. "This is Hydra? How d'you know?"

"I didn't come here without expecting compensation," Xavier warned. "I have a proposition."

"So get to the point," Tony replied, drawing too sharply on his cigar. It stung the back of his throat, and his eyes started to water.

"The X cannot take on Hydra alone, and Erik may not be willing to help, now that he has what he needs. I require your help, Tony. I need the Avengers." Tony twitched involuntarily at the name.

"The Avengers are toast. At least to me," he said. "You shoulda gone to the Captain. And I don't know if you know, but we're kinda in the middle of something."

"I do know," Xavier said, folding his hands on his lap. "The Decimation. You're currently entangled with the Maggia, or at least you were until about-" he checked his watch with a quick movement- "eight minutes ago." Tony set the cigar down very, very slowly, his heart looping in his chest.

"I told you four years ago not to stick your ass in my business," he growled.

"It's not just your business now, Tony," Xavier said calmly. Anger rose in Tony's throat, so close to lashing out. "I've been to the King. I've spoken to the Europeans. They agreed, and I sent my people in to dismantle the Maggia. A show of good faith, if you will." Xavier tilted his head, awaiting Tony's reply. Tony tried to calm, to slow his quick-rising breaths, to still the tremble in his gun hand.

"You wanted compensation. For givin' me information?"

"For lending you an army," Xavier breathed, leaning forward. "Tony, Hydra is our greatest threat. Our common enemy. I shouldn't have to convince you."

"You know, Charles, you sound a lot like Erik Lensherr right now," Tony replied, somewhat breathlessly. Xavier's brow twitched downwards.

"Soon enough, they'll have the government in their pocket," Xavier replied, disregarding Tony's statement. "Maybe even S.H.I.E.L.D."

"Don't talk to me about S.H.I.E.L.D," Tony spat.

"This is a state of emergency."

"I'm thinkin' about it."

"I'll wait." Xavier sat back again and studied the open window with the air of someone enjoying a fresh winter morning.

Tony reached for his Scotch, downed it, and slammed the glass onto the table.

"I've thought about it," he rasped, swallowing the burn of the alcohol. He chose to ignore Xavier's pointed look at the modern clock to their right, which showed the time ten minutes past ten. "You have yourself a goddamn deal. Semantics, or should we make a date?" A smile climbed onto Xavier's face. Tony could barely look him in the eye.

"Wonderful," Xavier said, pushing away from the desk and reaching for his wheels. "Tommaso's, seventeen hundred tomorrow. Bring the Captain. I'll show myself out."

"You got it," Tony said, smoothing down his hair and watching Xavier wheel himself to the door. "You know, for a mob boss, you sure are a polite sonofabitch."

"Just be glad you don't get to see me when I'm angry," Xavier said, over his shoulder, and Tony huffed an almost amicable laugh.

"Ain't that what Banner says?" And Xavier floated to a halt.

"You know, I do believe it is," he replied, and reached for the door handle. Then he paused again. "I'll see you tomorrow, Tony."

"See ya," Tony said. "The door goes outwards."

"I look forward to it." Xavier wheeled himself out the door and into the dim corridor, and Tony loosened his collar. This was turning out to be one helluva day.

∆

"Stop fidgeting, Pio," Wanda hissed, slapping at Pietro's hands. Lensherr had given them clothes, New York style, and Pietro's made him look like a thug. The collar of the jacket was itchy, and he had been complaining about it for at least half an hour.

"Can't you stop ordering me for a minute in a day?" Pietro growled, snapping his teeth at her like a turtle. Wanda drew her hand away.

"When you learn to behave like a person, I will."

The door across from them opened with a creak, and instantly, Pietro sat up, stiff like a board. Wanda smothered an eye roll, and a woman with golden eyes and blue streaks tattooed into her skin strolled out, gazing at them like they were zoo animals. Wanda stared straight back, until the door opened further and Erik Lensherr stepped into the frame, a huge silhouette, finely dressed, eyeing them with an old stare.

"Children," he said, and Wanda almost bit out a snappish reply, until Lensherr smiled. It cut into his skin like a knife slash, raw and new, but she wanted to smile back. She didn't. Pietro, on the other hand, was grinning like an idiot. 

They both stood, and Pietro brushed off the seat of his trousers with one hand.

"Yes, sir," he said in Russian. Lensherr blinked at them, and Wanda stood on Pietro's foot. "Yes, sir," Pietro squeaked, this time in English, and Lensherr nodded. Wanda tried her best not to scowl. They had travelled for years, withstood smugglers and oceans and Hydra, and their father didn't even know Russian. He might not even _be_ Russian.

All the same, Wanda did her best to curtsey, but Lensherr waved his hand.

"This is not the nineteenth century," he said with a chuckle, and he stood back from the door, the room within casting a beam of golden light on the floor. "Come in, please. We have much to discuss."

They took seats inside. It was modern, but fashioned in a very _American_ way. Suddenly, fiercely, Wanda started to long for home: its smells and comfort and even the biting cold of winter. Erik Lensherr was not home.

But he would become her home, she reminded herself. She had come too far now to suddenly decide that she didn't want this. Besides, she could never up and leave Pietro. Next to her, he was wiggling in his seat, twisting his fingers together in excitement.

"I always longed to find my legacy," Lensherr began. "I thought of you two for years on years, wondering, hoping."

"How come you never tried to find us?" Wanda blurted. Pietro whipped his head to her, wide-eyed, but Lensherr only sighed.

"I never did, you're right, my dear. And for that, I am truly sorry. I hope you might find it in your heart to forgive my absence all these years-" he laid a hand on his chest- "but I truly am excited for our time together from here on out." He smiled, again, that slash of a grin, and Wanda suppressed a shiver. "You must have found out, about the business. You must know that, now that I have found you, I will hope that one day you two might take it over. Build it sky-high. Become, fulfill the legacy." The smile disappeared. "I am glad to have you here, my children. We have work to do, and we will start with our enemies."

"We want to make you proud," Pietro piped up. Wanda shrugged in agreement, and Lensherr raised an eyebrow. "Where _do_ we start?" Pietro asked. "The X? S.H.I.E.L.D? The Avengers?" Wanda knew he was just spouting his knowledge, but Lensherr chuckled.

"You are ambitious, my boy, but no." He leant forwards. "We start with Hydra. And then, we will take on the rest."

Pietro's eyes shone. Wanda licked her lips. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.

∆

Maria burst into Clint's cubicle, startling him into spilling his coffee. He frowned at her over his mission file, mouth slightly open.

"It's Romanova," she said. Clint kicked the door closed.

"Hill," he started, but she held up a hand.

"She's put a hit out on me," she began quickly, the words falling from her mouth, not fast enough. Her heart was slamming against her ribs. Clint rubbed his eyes.

"I don't understand," he sighed.

"She told me, last night," Maria said urgently, her fingers flashing back and forth, her sign language muddling a little. Clint pressed the heel of his hand to the bridge of his nose.

"Aw, headache," he whined. "Hill, we have the mission-"

"You have to believe me," Maria blurted. "Clint, please."

"She _told_ you she ordered a hit on you?" Clint replied, squinting at her. Maria hesitated.

"I know it's unconventional-"

"That's not unconventional," Clint huffed. "That's just not Natasha, at all."

"Are you calling me a liar?" Maria snapped. He had to believe her. He had to.

"No!" Clint cried. "It's just- you know how it sounds, right?"

"Yeah, I know," Maria said, sinking into Clint's chair. She sighed. "But I know it's her, Clint. If she's after me, why not Coulson, too?" Clint chewed on his lip, still massaging his forehead. "It's all the concussions," Maria supplied helpfully. Clint snorted.

"Man, you're tellin' me. I think my concussions have concussions."

"Invest in a helmet."

"Hill, this doesn't make any sense. Why- it might not even be connected," Clint said, flicking aimlessly through the file. "Hell, what time is it? We gotta go." Maria sighed. 

"Can we at least look into it?"

"Carter's not gonna give us room to sneeze, you know that," Clint said, looping his quiver over his head. Maria chewed on her tongue, helplessness boiling somewhere in her stomach. "Look, Hill, you're safe, alright? I swear we won't have a repeat of last time, but we can't go chasing tangled wires, 'kay?" Maria nodded, and Clint clapped her sadly on the shoulder. "I'm sorry. We gotta roll out." And he left the cubicle. Maria dug her thumbs into her combat belt and gritted her teeth. Whatever Romanova might throw at her again, she was ready this time.

∆ 

"I want everyone on posts, action stations, you name it. We gotta tighten the web. You good to get out there and Spider-Man?" Natasha asked, snatching her keys from her drawer.

"Yeah, 'course," Peter said, pulling on his mask. "I gotta know what's going on, though."

"Get me Yelena on close guard, and a message to Matt: he needs to get the hell outta New York if he wants to live," Natasha replied gravely.

"Alright, alright, but what's happenin'?" Peter cried, struggling to stick a knife into a sheath on his leg as he pattered after her down the corridor.

"Tony struck a deal with the X," Natasha growled. "We're in all out war. It's Hydra."

"Goddamn Nazis," Peter growled, and he peeled off down a left hand corridor. "You got it, boss."

Natasha's heels snapped against the floor like the tattoo of a battle drum. She was ready this time, S.H.I.E.L.D and all be damned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope u liked it!! Be warned, this is not nearly the end of the series lmao, so if u were sad that there's only one more chapter in this fic, be ready to read a bunch more books ALL about the Marvel Mafia :))))


	6. Mechanical Time-Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone’s suiting up for battle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had to split the last chapter in half, I didn’t want it to be too long. I’ll put it up super soon, hopefully even in the next two days!!
> 
> Warning: needles and blood and knock-out chemicals
> 
> Also alcoholism and repressing gay feelings 
> 
> Because that’s always fun

Tony tossed back the last of his whisky and checked his watch for the third time in a minute.

“Tony, it’s eight in the morning,” Bruce said plaintively, dragging the glass away from Tony’s hand. “What’s got you all worked up?”

“What the hell do you know?” Tony snapped back, unable to stop himself. There were constant chills snaking down his back, though the thermostat was right up. Bruce raised a thick eyebrow. “Sorry,” Tony coughed, smoothing down his own collar. “What time’d they say they’d be here?”

“I don’t know,” Bruce replied, spreading his palms. “You’ll be hungover by three at this rate, though.” Tony ignored him and they lapsed into silence. “Shame about Barton,” Bruce piped up again. Tony grunted in response. “He was one of the best.”

“He was under Nat’s thumb,” Tony growled. “That’s not what you want in a friend.”

“None of us were friends.”

“Yeah, we all hated you, that’s for sure.” Bruce smiled gently, and Tony tapped on the bell, already thinking of his next drink.

“You need to slow down,” Bruce warned. Tony opened his mouth to argue, but then someone rapped on the door and he snapped his mouth closed. He stared at the wood for a second, until Bruce rolled his eyes and called, “Come in.” And the door opened.

Natasha strolled easily in, and Tony slumped back into his seat, cold disappointment starting to fester. She took a graceful seat, smiled like a viper at Bruce, and produced a cigarette and a light from her pocket without saying a thing. She lit the cigarette, drew on it, and let out a cloud of smoke from between her teeth. It floated over Bruce’s shoulder and he looked like he was refraining from coughing.

“Good to see you, Tony.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Tony growled, staring at the light switch on the wall past Nat’s head.

“Day drinking again?”

“Like you’re one to talk.”

“Vision followed me home last night,” Natasha said, and she placed the cigarette back between her lips. The statement hung between them, swinging tantalisingly like a broken door. “Wouldn’t know anything about that, woulja?” she murmured, the words tinged with smoke. Tony managed, just about, not to flinch. Goddamn. First Danvers was on to him, and now the Widow was digging her claws in. Soon came the twist, he knew. He’d seen her do it hundreds of times.

“Maybe he heard you were offerin’ services,” Tony said bitterly. Natasha tilted her head and smiled again. Her teeth winked in the morning light like pearls.

“Maybe,” she replied, and her voice was too low not to be dangerous. Bruce’s dark eyes flitted back and forth like he was watching a high-stakes tennis game with a gun to his head. Natasha sat back, and Tony felt her gaze sting his face. “How are ya, Bruce?”

“Oh- good,” Bruce managed, knotting his fingers. Natasha grinned wider. Tony could tell from that smile how much she was enjoying watching them both squirm.

Before she could make them suffer any longer, however, the door opened again and Tony straightened, suddenly alert. Another cold string of nerves zipped down his spine, and he shivered.

Steve ducked into the room, and after him, Thor, hulking in the doorframe. If Tony had been concentrating any longer, he would have seen T’Challa, sharp in a well-cut suit with silver-lined cuffs and pockets. He wasn’t concentrating, though. Steve was watching Tony as he loped to his seat, and their shared gaze split the room like a bolt of iron.

“Now that we’re all here,” Natasha drawled, eyes flickering from Tony to Steve and back again. Tony stared at his own knuckles, white and veined with thin blue threads. Bony. He remembered eating half a bread roll two days ago. “Can we start?”

“Xavier wants’a battle it out with Hydra,” Tony said immediately, ignoring Bruce’s cut-off attempt at a preamble. Instantly, Steve stood with a thunderous look, hackles rising, and Natasha’s eyes glittered dangerously.

“Hydra?” Steve thundered, a snarl splintering his perfect face. “They’re still functional?” He whirled to Tony, who reached with clumsy fingers for the bottle in a cooler not two feet away. “Ya didn’t tell me?”

“No need to sound so betrayed,” Tony muttered, ignoring the sting of Steve’s voice in his chest. He let his eyes fall half-lidded and yanked the cork weakly from the bottle. The light was harsh; the sun, the lamps, the glint of Steve’s hair, T’Challa’s goddamned silver cuff links. He took a sip straight from the bottle, relishing in the scratch of a harsh drink down the back of his throat, and loosened his tie. “We’ve all got bones to pick and triggers to pull, Steve. Siddown.”

“You don’t seem very well, Stark,” Thor observed wisely. “Perhaps...a rest?”

“My resting heartbeat registers as an arrhythmia,” Tony groaned. With effort, he managed to slide up into a semblance of a sitting position, and dug his thumb into one eye socket to quell the rising headache. “What matters is Hydra. Right? They stole the Maximurfs.” His speech was starting to slur. T’Challa and Natasha exchanged a look that even Tony, pissed as an LA gutter rat, couldn’t miss. He didn’t mention it. “I’ve got Keener on toppa the sitch, alright? But Cavier, whatever, whatever, wants us there, or he’s gonna get his revenge. Ball?”

The others were staring. They were blurring, too, and the room was marvellously hot all of a sudden. No more cold spells. 

“No more damn ghosts in here,” Tony said to himself, and then he chuckled weakly. They were talking over him, discussing something in irritated tones. Steve was draped over his chair like some kind of royal lion, and the sun was sliding into his eyes. Turning them into hollow pools of bright white. Tony took another drink. This wasn’t natural, this Steve-thinking. It wasn’t a normal, somewhat-friend way of thinking. Tony didn’t like the way his own eye slid instantly to the edge of Steve’s collarbone beneath his loose shirt, because that wasn’t how Bruce looked at people. Thor didn’t linger on Steve’s jawline whenever he talked to him. There were no sideways looks from T’Challa.

Sure, Steve had gravitas. But this wasn’t that. And Tony had no idea how to kill it off, except to make sure he couldn’t possibly do it anymore. So he tipped the rest of the bottle down his throat and began to rejoice in the blank fury of it all.

∆

“Carter!” Maria hissed, stepping away from Clint’s trail to catch Sharon leaving the reception toilet. Sharon stumbled to a halt, looking mildly disoriented. Outside, an armoured truck idled, and Clint heaved himself into the drivers seat.

“What is it?” Sharon asked, taking a few quick, tentative steps towards Maria and checking that the receptionist was occupied. “I’m on mission in-“ she checked her watch- “ten minutes.”

“What’s the mission?” Maria asked curiously. Sharon looked over Maria's tac suit and frowned.

“Maximoffs. You?” Maria opened her mouth, then shut it again instantly. Tell no one. Those were the orders.

“Confidential,” she replied apologetically. Sharon nodded, crisp. “Can you do me a favour?”

∆

"Barton, I swear to God," Maria heard Lumley gripe from the front of the truck, but then the rest of the conversation was suddenly and loudly drowned out by _Rock Around the Clock_ blaring from the front radio. Morse, sat across from Maria with her hand on her rifle, winced. Maria tried to bury her consciousness in the map spread over her knees, to no avail.

"I want stealth," she called, over the thrum of the song. "If we get the NYPD called on us, Hydra will scatter again. We have to take every location silently. Got it?"

"And if we don't find Coulson?" May asked. There was a thick, cold look in her eye. Maria let her own brow furrow with determination.

"We will," she replied. "Bishop?"

"We've got posts marked out," Bishop replied. "Every location, Barton and I will take it from the top."

"Good," Maria called. The walls of the truck were shaking now with how loud the music was, and Clint was bobbing his head back and forth. Morse was staring at him with a tired look on her face. "Agent May, you're two i/c today." May nodded. Her knuckles were white, gripping the barrel of her gun like a vice.

Finally, the song ended and Lumley wrangled Clint’s hand away from the radio to punch the off button; the truck fell into an ear-ringing silence. 

"Just trying to lighten the mood," Clint said, sticking his face into the back, but there was a tightness around his jaw that told Maria he wasn’t succeeding.

“Stop trying, then,” Morse replied. Clint stuck his tongue out and ducked back into his seat, just as the truck slowed and turned off into an expensive barber’s parking lot. Across the street, a movie theatre’s neon sign winked to life. The barber had wide windows, checkered curtains, and there was a tall guy with a sharp middle-part subtly watching the van from the clear doorway.

“Lumley, negotiation time,” Maria said, moving slightly in order to not be visible form the windscreen. Lumley left the engine running and opened his door, stepping out into the cold morning, jeans and a collar shirt. Tall, imposing, kind smile. Clint was gripping the dash with narrowed eyes. Morse had her back flat against the wall of the van, staring at a point somewhere to Maria’s left, and Bishop was fiddling with the radio frequencies, trying to get rid of the feedback from the bug in Lumley’s back pocket.

Lumley reached the door and stepped in, nodding to the guy with the middle part.

“ _What can I do for you, sir?”_ said a man’s voice, too loud and crystal clear in the small truck. Bishop winced and turned the sound down slightly.

“ _Well, I’m thinkin’ of a kinda new style,_ “ Lumley replied. “ _Not really got much of an idea, though. Don’t s’pose you got some styles I could look at_?”

There was a long pause. May was glaring at Bishop’s radio like she was trying to make it implode.

“ _Of course_ ,” the barber conceded nervously, after a second. “ _I’ll just-_ “

“ _Excellent_ ,” Lumley said cheerfully. “ _Right back here_?”

“ _Actually-_ “

“ _Ah, apologies. After you._ “ There was the shuffle of feet, a clearing of a throat, and then a sigh, and the tap of shoes on a linoleum floor.

“Hill,” Clint said urgently, and Maria leaned forwards to look out the windscreen. Two men were approaching the barber shop, suit and wristwatch kind of guys. 

_Gang_? Maria signed. Clint nodded.

“One’s Rogers’, I think. Other guy’s a spider.” Maria mulled this over for a second. Clint looked at her.

“Can we take them?”

“If we can get ‘em back here. Can’t make trouble on the street.”

“Yeah,” Maria conceded. “Alright, May, with me. Take the vest off, let’s go.” May unstrapped her armoured vest and discarded it on the bench. She cracked her neck and nodded solemnly at Maria, and Maria opened the back doors and climbed out, May right beside her. The men were almost at the door.

“Scuse me, sirs!” May called, raising a hand, and they turned. One had his hand on the door handle. They exchanged a look, and then one of them narrowed his eyes suspiciously at Maria. Stocky and tall, sideburns. Maria stopped, and May stumbled to a halt just ahead with a frown. “Hill?” It was Peter Quill. The man who’d checked them for weapons at Tommaso’s, when Romanova had taken them to see the Captain.

“May, that’s-“

“A soldier, I know,” May said, through gritted teeth, a realisation dawning on hr face. “Bad idea.”

“We’ve botched it,” Maria hissed, as Quill muttered something to the other man. “Radio Bishop. We gotta leave Lumley.” The men started walking. Maria clenched her jaw, utterly infuriated with herself. “Okay, forget that. Run.”

They turned, and ran, back into the parking lot, past the truck. Behind them, the men were running too, now. Gaining on them. Inside the truck, Barton stared at them with bugged-out eyes as they ran past. Maria’s heart slammed into her ribs, the earth spinning out beneath her feet. Goddamn, those men were fast. 

“Split,” Maria gasped, and May sprinted out onto the road, peeling off. Maria leapt the low wall at the back of the parking lot, and behind her she heard the screech of wheels as the truck pulled out. So much for subtle. 

She stumbled down a slope of grit, into a corridor running behind a row of houses. With a spray of dirt, one of the men leapt down after her and Maria took off again, willing her feet to hit the ground faster and harder.

She’d left her radio in the truck. She ran and ran, and a burn in her chest flickered like a knife-edged pain. With that kind of fire inside her, she could run forever. Weeds were sprouting at the sides of the path. She splashed into a puddle and out again, and the man’s steady pace thumped louder and louder behind her.

There was a corner ahead, a gap between two buildings, and Maria sped up, her breath grating down her throat. She dashed around the corner and onto the road, just as the truck sped past and she turned again, sprinting after the truck. The doors were swinging open, and Morse was hanging out the back, rifle in hand. Maria waved desperately, and Morse saw her, eyes widening. Someone honked behind Maria, but the truck was disappearing ahead, down the road. 

A crack in the road hooked Maria’s foot out from under her and she fell, palms skinning against the concrete. She rolled, and the wheels of a car thundered past her head. The road slashed at her face, clawing away a layer of skin painfully. Maria’s momentum ran out and she rolled to a stop in the gutter, the edge of the sidewalk knocking gently against her shoulder.

She lay there for a second, dizzy, and then someone grabbed her shoulder, digging their fingers in, and her chaser, Quill, she recognised distantly, hauled her out of the road and threw her onto the empty sidewalk. She hit it with her hip and grunted, scrambling clumsily to climb to her feet, but Quill slammed a kick into her ribs, lifting her slightly. She crumpled again, gasping, pain stabbing her lungs. Quill appeared above her, swaying. Or maybe that was her vision. Maria dug the heel of her palm into the ground, trying to crawl backwards. Quill flicked his long coat to the side and pulled a gun from his belt, raised it with a wicked grin. Maria stared down the barrel, a coin of black.

“I’m not ready to go,” she slurred, and she was barely sure if that was her own voice.

“Too bad,” Quill replied, cocking the gun. _Bang_! Maria flinched, but it was Quill who roared in pain. There was no thunk of a bullet into her body. Quill staggered to the side, gun falling from his grip.

It took seconds. It took too long for Maria to catch up, but when she had, she scooped up the gun, staggered to her feet, and ran, leaving Quill to bleed out, groaning, on the sidewalk. She got barely fifty metres, carried forward purely on terror and adrenaline. Her legs gave out on the corner, where the road intersected, but it was empty.

Maria sank to her knees against a lamp post, her lungs rattling painfully. There was blood in her mouth, vomit rising at the pool of Quill’s blood spreading across the concrete, the image burned into her mind. There were spots of blood on the gun in her hand.

She was tougher than this. She’d seen plenty of dead people.

Who had shot Quill?

Maria snagged the lamp post with one hand and staggered to her feet, and just as she did so, a bullet bit the ground beside her foot. A spray of stone crashed against her ankle and she cried out, scrambling around the corner. She pressed her back to the wall, pushing bile down her throat with an eye-watering burn. No more shots came. Maria gasped, one hand pressed to her torso.

Romanova. 

She needed to hire better assassins.

Maria checked the street number on the wall, from the plaque nailed to the building. She wasn’t too far from that old dance place, Romanova’s place.

If she’d had a clear head, if that anger and the chemicals in her veins from the run and the shooting hadn’t been distorting her thoughts, she would have dismissed it far too easily. As it was, all Maria could think of were those sharp green eyes, goading her in a damp alley. Glittering in an interrogation room that smelt like Lumley’s tobacco. All she could think of was lips pressed against her ear in a van just outside the Red Hook docks. A snake of perfume, winding through a stream of smoke in a dim room.

She could end this. 

Maria pushed away from the wall, and took a few staggering steps down the street. She found a rhythm, and soon she was walking fast, someone else’s blood on a gun that wasn’t hers, a map in her head, and a mission she hadn’t been given.

∆

“I’ll meet you at the Stork in ten,” Steve snapped into the phone. “Bring the big guns, woulja?”

“ _Ya got it_ ,” Dugan replied the from other end, and then the line went dead. Steve set the phone back down with a click.

The door opened and he turned, not bothering to wipe the frown from his face.

“Buck,” he greeted, as Bucky slunk into the room. “You ‘right?” Bucky set a sniper gun down carefully on Steve’s neat desk, ad collapsed into the chair.

“I need a drink,” he grated. Steve reached instantly for the handle of the liquor cabinet, studying Bucky’s face with trepidation.

“What happened?” 

“I did som’in wrong, Steve,” he mumbled. Steve poured out a gin and pressed it into Bucky’s hand.

“What do you mean?” Becky finally looked at him, and there was something akin to terror in his eyes. Steve took a step back, worry rising. “I can fix it, Buck.”

“She’s gonna kill me,” Bucky whimpered.

“Hey,” Steve said sharply. “Nunna that. What’s my best soldier doin’, whinin’ in my chair at noon? You gotta be mad elf touger stuff’n that, Buck.” Bucky shook his head miserably, and Steve gripped his shoulder. “You know what’ll cheer y’up?”

“No,” Bucky whispered, downing his drink in one. He raised bloodshot eyes. “I’m sorry, Steve.”

“The Commandos, Buck,” Steve said, shaking Bucky’s shoulder. “The whole gang, back together. Yanno what we’ll do?” Bucky stared at him. His eyes were starting to unfocus, and Steve snapped his fingers in front of Bucky’s face. “We’re about to take down Hydra, for the final time. Ain’t that boss? You gone be free, Buck.” Bucky’s eye glittered, this time.

“Really?” he grated out, and he started to look hopeful. Steve nodded.

“Yeah, Buck. But I needja with me, yeah? I need you on your best form.” Bucky nodded, and then he nodded again. Then his face crumpled.

“I took her job, Steve. I killed someone, I think. I ain’t kill the right guy. I let the job get away. She’s gonna come for me.”

“Shut up,” Steve replied, none too gently. “Here, another drink. We’ve got Hydra, now. We’ll make ‘em pay for what they did to you. You don’t gotta worry ‘bout nu’n else, alright? I got it under control.”

∆

“We have to go back!” Bobbi called, over the roar of the engine, and Clint glanced wildly into the rear view mirror. “That was Hill!” In the passenger seat, May’s head lolled back, her leg wound staining the seat a thick, dark colour.

Ahead of them, Clint swerved a corner and the car that had shot May followed, the wheels of the truck riding up on the curb. One back door banged shut, and he cursed himself.

“We have to go back, damn it!” Bobbi screamed.

“I’m sorry, Hill,” Clint muttered to himself.

“There was a sniper!” Bobbi cried, latching onto the headrest as they swerved another corner. “Damn you, Clint!” Clint said nothing. Hill would never have left him. She didn’t believe in collateral, whatever Director Carter said. Clint thought of Hill bleeding out beneath his palms.

“Bobbi!” Kate yelled, and Clint turned just enough to see Bobbi leap for the open doors.

“Bobbi, sit your ass down, that’s an order!” Clint roared. Kate grabbed her around the waist, and then the truck hit the sidewalk and they both slid helplessly out of the doors and into the road. Clint slammed on the brakes, May flew into the dash with a grunt, and outside, gunfire began with a dim rattle. Clint threw open the door and ran into the fray, pulling his bow from his belt. The car had gone into a wall, was up in flames, and two gang members were firing at a prostrate Bobbi and a screaming Kate from behind the trunk. 

Clint nocked an arrow and fired, right into the car’s engine. The bonnet exploded, and he made for the women. Kate was firing aimlessly and dizzily at the car still, blood trickling from her hairline, and Bobbi was stirring feebly. Clint stumbled to a stop beside Kate and wrenched the gun from her hand.

“It’s okay, Katie,” he heard himself say dimly, “it’s okay. They’re dead.” Bobbi was lying still now, and panic was clawing up Clint’s throat. Kate stopped firing, let him take the gun. She slumped to her knees, pale and swaying. Clint heaved Bobbi onto her side; her nose was bleeding thickly, her lip was split, her face grazed raw. “Radio for back-up and an ambulance,” Clint said, hoping his voice wasn’t shaking. Bobbi’s arm was bent the wrong way, a patch of hair scalped from behind her ear. “Bob? Come on, wake up, I’m here. Katie?” Kate fumbled for her radio with shivering fingers.

“I got it,” she mumbled, “Head Quarters Big Apple, this is Agent Bishop, requesting medical extraction and an extra team. Over.” She switched frequencies as Clint moved Bobbi into better position. “Agent Lumley, come in.”

“ _Where the hell are you guys_?” Lumley grated over the radio, flooding Clint with relief. Kate looked like she was about to burst into tears. 

“Eight blocks north,” she replied, voice shaking. “We need you, Lumley. We lost-“ she cleared her throat, squeezing her eyes shut. “We lost Hill.” Silence buzzed from Lumley’s end.

“ _Hell_ ,” he said thickly. “I’m comin’. Sit tight.”

“We haven’t lost Hill,” Clint managed stubbornly. Kate shook her head, letting her radio hand fall to her lap.

“Clint-“

“We haven’t,” Clint gritted, shaking his head. He wouldn’t have it. They couldn’t have lost her, not again. “She’s not dead. I know where she’d go.”

“Clint, she’s gone,” Kate managed, wiping her face, smudging tears and gravel across her cheeks.

“Kate, you listen to me,” Clint replied, grabbing her chin in a firm grip. “Coulson’s still out there, somewhere. I- we need him back. Got me?” His voice was dangerously broken. He couldn’t tear himself in half between Maria and Phil. He had to make his choices, and carefully. “I know where Hill will go. I need you to lead the team that will come as back-up, I _need_ you to do it.” Kate shook her head, her breathing getting shallow. “Katie, Kate, look at me.” Her eyelids trembled with more tears. “You _have_ to do this. I trust you.”

“I never led a team before,” Kate managed.

“Please,” Clint said, through gritted teeth. “I can’t lose both of ‘em.” Kate stared at him. “I’ll be back to help before you know it,” Clint promised. “I swear.”

“Okay,” Kate sniffed. “Okay,” she visibly steeled herself. “Go, then.” Clint wiped her damp hair out of her face, and she nodded and brushed his hand away. “Go. I’ve got this.”

“Atta girl,” Clint said, rising to his feet. “I’m leaving you the truck. Check on May.”

“You got it.”

“Stay safe, Hawkeye,” he said gently, and then he turned his back on her pale form and started to run. He knew where he was going.

∆

“The Captain’s meeting with his Commandos at the Stork,” Peter reported, steadying his precarious position on Natasha’s window sill with one hand. “Foggy’s takin’ Matt outta state.”

“Okay,” Natasha said, slightly distracted by the tumultuous noise going on upstairs on the stage, thumping feet, yelling, crowing. “What the hell is that noise? Lenka, can you take a look?” Yelena nodded and disappeared through the doorway. “Good work, Parker. Anything else?”

“Big disruption at Collie’s barber. Car chase, probably S.H.I.E.L.D,” he said. Natasha’s head snapped up. 

“S.H.I.E.L.D?” she snapped. “They’re out already?” Parker nodded gravely. “Alright,” Natasha said, hissing a breath through her teeth. She tucked a pistol into her shoulder holster. “Keep an eye on that. Get gone.”

“See ya,” Peter said, and he leaped off the windowsill, vanishing into the colour of a New York morning.

The door opened again, and Yelena appeared in the frame. There was someone behind her, lagging, injured.

“What is it?” Natasha asked, halfway through strapping a knife to her forearm. Yelena moved to the side, and the someone, Maria Hill, glared brown daggers from the hollow of the dark corridor. Natasha froze. Maria Hill, perfectly alive. Without a bullet between her eyes.

Something complex and something wild began to battle their ways through her brain. With every thought, Maria’s eyes seemed to become darker. 

“Yelena, leave,” Natasha hissed. Yelena blinked, looking back and forth between the two of them. Natasha didn’t know if this was anger or relief, but it was choking her, slowly. “Leave!” she roared, and Yelena turned and ran. Maria was holding her side with one hand, a nosebleed tracking a grimy trail over her lip.

“Did you think I would wait to die?” Maria rasped. Natasha let out one breath, and it stumbled over itself, as if down a flight of stairs.

“I made my peace with you,” Natasha managed. This was a whey-faced, cracked ghost. An apparition of Maria Hill. 

Maria shook her head with a painful laugh, and stepped over the threshold, kicking the door closed behind her.

“That’s not how this works, Romanova,” she croaked. 

_I drank to your name, last night,_ Natasha wanted to say. _I toasted your spirit. I let go of everything, I snapped the hold you had on me._

“James didn’t...”

“He didn’t get me, no,” Maria said, easing herself into a lean against the wall. She reached for the lock, and flicked it shut. “He murdered Peter Quill, I think.” Her gaze fell to Natasha’s bare arm, where she’d hiked up her sleeve to strap down the knife. Natasha shook the sleeve back down.

“I never did like that man,” she mused, the shock fading.

“Into battle?” Maria asked, nodding at Natasha’s sleeve.

“You ain’t come here to make small talk,” Natasha bit back. Maria laughed, and it sounded like a scorched version of what it should have been. She drew a pistol from her pocket, and it drooped loosely in her hand, but she managed to aim it in the vague direction of Natasha’s sternum. Natasha stilled.

“No,” Maria said. “I came to make good on my promise from the alley.”

“Maria-“

“No,” Maria snarled, suddenly, shifting painfully into a walk. She stalked Natasha down, right across the room, until Natasha let the cold wall slide up against her back. “You don’t get to talk your way out of it this time, Widow. You’ve _lost_.”

“I think you said that before,” Natasha replied, softly. “How’d that work out for ya?” Maria cocked the weapon.

“You want those to be your last words?” she growled. Natasha’s face was warm, her heart was ramming itself relentlessly against her breast. Her blood, thickening in her veins simply from that dangerous look in Maria’s eye.

She grabbed the gun and twisted, throwing her knee into Maria’s injured ribs. Maria howled and stumbled sideways. The gun went off, a hole appearing in the wall with a spray of plaster, and Natasha wrenched Maria’s wrist sideways. The gun went clattering across the floor and Natasha slammed a head but into Maria’s nose. Maria dropped gracelessly and Natasha gripped the collar of her uniform and hauled her back up, against the wall.

Maria’s eyes rolled dazedly, and Natasha shook her until they focused.

“Never does work out for me, does it?” Maria slurred. She sounded tired. She sounded...defeated. Natasha let go of her, stepped back, trying to scrub the feeling of Maria’s hot, blood-crust skin off her knuckles. “You always win, Widow.” Maria Hill was not supposed to sound defeated. That wasn’t...she wasn’t supposed to slump against a pristine wall, smearing blood over the paint, with a hollow, death-like gleam in her eye. This was not how Maria Hill should die. Natasha swallowed, like there was a lump of grease in her throat. Maria spread her hands, stepping unsteadily away from the wall. “Do you want to kill me, Romanova?”

“Ain’t you gonna fight back, Hill?” Natasha snapped, suddenly. She threw the palm of her hand into Maria’s sternum, and Maria stumbled backwards, heels scuffing the wall. “Ain’t you gonna spit, and curse-“ Natasha slapped her head against the wall beside Maria’s head, pressing dangerously close, so close she could smell the blood on Maria’s tongue- “and tell me to _fuck off_?” Natasha tilted her head, and Maria’s gaze slid down the long bridge of her nose, drifting over Natasha’s shoulder with little more than carelessness. Natasha gripped Maria’s chin, heat climbing her gullet, forcing Maria to stare blankly right into Natasha’s face. “Ain’t you gonna look me in my eye and tell me, _dare_ me, to _do my worst_?” 

_Please_.

Maria sighed, warm breath fanning over Natasha’s nose.

“Do your worst, Romanova,” she managed, a whisper, a tremble. Natasha’s heart might have split into a hundred pieces in that moment. She couldn’t think, not with the heat of Maria steaming through her veins, not with the brush of her bloodied chin on Natasha’s fingertips.

So she kissed her, hard, and desperate, and it was blood and heat and a singing in her ears, and all the bullets and curses ever thrown by the two of them. Natasha started to lose herself in that kiss, running her tongue along the seam of Maria’s lips, Maria panting helplessly into her mouth, and there was nothing between them now.

She had to stop kissing her sometime. Natasha pulled back, lips burning, ready for the shame to pour its sticky self all over her, like every other time she’d done this to someone. It didn’t come.

Maria tilted her head back, eyelids falling closed. Her hand grasped at the wall, to find purchase, and when none came, she opened her eyes, and then she was staring straight at Natasha. It was like falling through dark, having Maria Hill stare at her like that. Natasha took two more steps back, pressing her palm to her lips, her heartbeat in her throat.

“You-“ Maria tried, gasping. “ _God_ , Natasha.”

“I’m sorry,” Natasha said, before she could stop herself, mumbling through her fingers, not even recognising that this was the first time, the first _real_ time that Maria had said her name. “Hill- Maria-“

“Fuck,” Maria groaned, thumping the back of her head against the wall.

“Natalia?” Yelena called through the door, and Natasha froze. Maria eyed her, head still tilted all the way back. Still covered in blood and gravel, road rash flaying one side of her face, one hand gripping her injured side.

“I need to go,” Maria said hoarsely. Natasha blinked, coming out of some sort of trance, and Maria raised an eyebrow at her. “Unless you’re still about to kill me?”

“No!” Natasha said, far too loudly. “No, I-“ They stared at each other for a long while, as if on either sides of a steadily widening chasm. A gaping drop between them. “The back door leads to a fire escape,” Natasha breathed, finally, gesturing to the door. Yelena knocked again. “Just a minute!” Natasha roared, making Maria flinch.

“What about you?” Maria asked. “You don’t just- let people go. Do you?” She sounded so hesitant. Natasha had to bite back a smile.

“No,” she replied, and she crossed to the chemical cupboard and pulled out the bottle of Propofol; a tiny thing, almost three-quarters empty. Maria moved over slowly, watching with trepidation as Natasha started to fill a syringe.

“What are you doing?”

“I ain’t never done this to myself,” Natasha warned her, and Maria grabbed at her wrist as she readied the syringe. “You need to put this all back in the cupboard when I’m done.”

“Don’t- what’s going on?” Maria asked, brow furrowing. “Romanova-“

“I’m gonna knock myself out,” Natasha said, attempting to breathe normally. Needles were horrid things, and Maria’s worry wasn’t helping. Maria searched her face as Natasha flicked the bubbles out of the syringe. “First of all, you’re gonna hit me, a’right?”

“No, I-“

“Maria-“

“I can’t! What-“

“Just here,” Natasha said, tapping the side of her jaw. “And if that don’t drop me-“ she raised the syringe like a gleaming shark of a toast- “this certainly will.” Maria looked like she was about to protest again, but Natasha grasped at her fingers and lifted them, one by one, from her own wrist. “Do you wanna walk outta here alive?”

“I can’t hit you,” Maria said weakly.

“What changed from five minutes ago when ya had a gun to my heart?” Natasha snapped, irritation mixing with panic. Maria stared at her, and eventually her gaze softened to something less than stone.

“Everything,” she managed. They were running out of time, but still, Maria just stood there, one palm out like she was begging. 

Natasha hit her shoulder, not too hard, with the flat of her palm, and Maria went stumbling a step or two back, alarm on her face.

“Hit me,” snapped Natasha, trying painfully to ignore the look in Maria’s eyes. “Hit me!” 

Maria’s face contracted, and _finally_ , she lashed out, knuckles to the side of Natasha’s jaw. Natasha dropped gracelessly, her hip hitting the edge of the cupboard, the world spinning magnificently. She blinked, her face suddenly in the carpet, one hand stretched out, the needle glinting in the low light. 

Natasha braced one hand into the carpet and sat up dizzily, waving the syringe in the air until the handle found purchase in someone else’s hand- Maria’s hand. 

“Right in the neck,” Natasha mumbled, and as the needle went in, she found herself saying, “Brilliant punch, by the way,” just before a fuzz of grey descended and sleep cascaded over her like a warm blanket.

∆

Nothing could ever be easy, could it?

“Aren’t you- Hawkeye?” the girl on guard asked, squinting at him. Clint took a step forwards, the charm ready, but she raised a pistol from nowhere and he stumbled to a halt.

“No, see, it’s cool,” he tried. “It’s cool, I’m an Avenger.” And he punched, going for the jaw. The girl ducked just in time and he got her temple instead, at the wrong angle; she dropped like a stone and his knuckles cracked ominously. Pain flared out into his hand and Clint barely managed not to screech in pain, folding his entire body over his fist. Broken knuckles hurt like _ass_.

After a couple moments of self-pitying, Clint managed to straighten and, gasping, made his way to the door. He yanked on the handle and wrenched it open. Someone inside turned their head and- goddamn.

“Hey, Stacy,” Clint managed, still puffing in pain. Gwen Stacy stared.

“Hawkeye?”

“Funny you should say that,” Clint said, strained. “You want an autograph?”

“Breach!” Stacy roared, and she leapt for him, bounding off the wall with a foot to his face. It connected, purple spots bursting behind his eyes, and Clint flew backwards from the force. He hit the ground with a flat shoulder and rolled, coming up just as Stacy flipped into some unholy routine of kicks, one after the other. Clint retreated, defending with the flats of his arms, the force of an elbow, and Stacy kept coming, cartwheeling over. Clint reached the unconscious girl’s body, crouched, gripped her collar, and swung her round, right into Stacy’s whirling attacks. 

The two bodies dropped again, but Stacy spun away, lithe as a dancer. She drew a knife from seemingly thin air, and Clint curled his broken hand into a painful fist.

“Miss Romanova said she wanted you alive, when she put out the order,” Stacy warned, edging forwards. 

“Oh,” Clint said, cheerfully. 

“So that she could torture you herself,” Stacy spat.

“Oh,” Clint said, bleakly.

“Barton, get down!” Clint didn’t hesitate. He threw himself bodily to the ground and with a growl of gunfire, Stacy dropped, too, blood seeping out through her clothes. Clint, arms curled over his head, dizzy and bruised, hearing aid ringing, looked carefully over his shoulder. Nick Fury, like an avenging angel, was looming behind him, a hand extended. “You alright, Barton?” he asked. Clint took his hand with a wince, and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet.

“Ow. Yeah.”

“We’ve got work to do, and you’ve got a mission to get back to,” Fury said sternly, adjusting the collar of his coat. His rifle was still smoking. Clint stared at him, wide-eyed.

“But Hill-“

“I got it,” Fury said. “You go. Forty-sixth street, you’ll hear the gunfire. We need this wrapped up before civilians get hurt.”

“Yes, sir,” Clint gasped. “Coulson’s there?”

“Only if you get to him in time,” Fury replied gravely. “Car’s waiting. I’ll see you on the other side, Agent.”

“Thank you,” Clint said, and then he turned and ran.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Im sorry this chapter got too long, i’m Putting the rest up really soon: so big battle chapter seven, and then that’s the end of The Mechanic.
> 
> Feedback would be appreciated x


	7. Mechanical Fall-Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And so the end of Hydra begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my sweet Jesus on a tightrope, I FINISHED THE MECHANIC  
> Thank you all SO MUCH for your good vibes in the comments and your kudos and your books marks, and even youse who just read the story and made me feel loved with the hits on this.  
> The next book, most probably entitled The Agent, will be out soon, don't you worry your little cotton socks! I hope you're looking forward to it!
> 
> Happy holidays, guys, and hopefully I’ll see you soon!
> 
> CW: blood, gratuitous violence, gore, people shooting people, gang wars, youse know what you're in for

They’d gotten tired of him soon enough, and now all he had to entertain himself with was the four tiled walls of the mildew-stinking bathroom they’d locked him in. Coulson’s hands were lashed securely to the radiator, the rope eating away at the skin of his wrists every time he shifted. The light kept winking, and it was getting a little annoying, to say the least.

“Can’t a guy get a drink of water around here?” he tried. Someone slammed something very heavy into the bathroom door, and it rattled ominously in its frame. “Guess not,” Coulson muttered. His black eye twinged with every movement of his jaw, not to mention the split lip, or the cracked tooth, or the bitten tongue.

He wasn’t afraid. S.H.I.E.L.D would come for him, or they wouldn’t. Two outcomes. He’d made his peace; they all had.

∆

“Post on nineteenth says the X are gathering,” Rollins panted, red-faced from his run. “Peter Quill’s bleedin’ out near the barbers, no idea what happened there, but they’re evacuatin’.”

“Good, good,” Garrett growled. “Get out there, good man.” Rollins turned and ran, and Garrett turned back to the security cameras with a scowl on his face. Rumlow watched Rollins leave.

“What’s got your goat, boss?” he asked. “They ain’t know where we are.”

“I’m on edge, Rumlow, that’s what it is,” Garrett barked back. Rumlow stepped away regretfully. “Pierce wanted the twins. Schmidt’s up my ass about losin’ Strucker ‘cause ‘a those _goddamn _Avengers. And d’you know where Ward is?”__

____

“No, sir,” Rumlow said carefully.

____

“No,” Garrett muttered. “No, ya don’t, ‘cause he’s been out all night, and no one knows where he is.” He slammed a fist into the table in front of him, and it rattled against the floor.

__“Sir?”_ _

__“We’re gonna kill ‘em tonight, Rumlow,” Garrett said, staring intensely at the flickering feed of Phil Coulson, tied up in the fourth floor bathroom. “You better not let me down.”_ _

__“No, sir,” Rumlow said. He had a bone or two to pick, himself. Starting with the Captain, and the nasty scar he’d left across Rumlow’s face four years ago._ _

__∆_ _

She'd managed to set up a ram with four of the task force, right against the warehouse doors. May was on radio from the damn hospital, the team was made up of the bare minimum, and Kate barely had an idea of what she'd do the second they got inside.

She wasn't panicking. She wasn't.

"Katie!" She turned, and from the end of the road, the low autumn sun nicking coldly off his bruises, Clint was limping towards them.

"Don't call me Katie," she said, dazedly, a knee-jerk by now, and he slapped her on the back with a forceful hand. Relief was flooding her like a broken oil pipe.

"I like the set-up."

"Where the hell have you been?"

"Getting my ass handed to me by a cheerleader," he replied, with usual nonchalance. "What count are we on?" The ram team were staring, still in position, right up against the doors.

"Oh," Kate said, landing back in her role with a thump. "Ready?" she asked, trying to scrape the timidity from her voice. The team all gave affirmative gestures, gloved hands wrapped around the handles, necks craning and focused. "On one," she said, pulling an arrow from her quiver. "Three, two, one." They pulled back, and slammed the ram into the lock. 

With a musty _crack_ , the wood splintered easily, the locks snapping, but the door held somehow.

The team pulled back, waiting for her call.

"Again!" Kate said, nocking her arrow. Beside her, Clint did the same. The team swung, again, _crunch_ into the door. The hinges wriggled in their sockets. "Again!"

This time, as the ram swung into the wood, the hinges cracked, bolts spitting from the frame, and the doors flew inwards with an almighty crash. Kate had her arrow up before they'd hit the floor, but beyond the splintered doorframe, there was a small stretch of grainy concrete, and then the darkness, hunched around the doorway like an animal.

"Flashlight," Kate ordered, barely without thinking, and one of the ram team, Agent Temple produced one from nowhere. He switched it on, and the inside of the warehouse slid into a stark, white view. Nothing. Empty. Kate started to lower her bow, disappointment and frustration stumbling over themselves to dominate her brain.

That was when she saw the stairs.

"Stairs," Clint said, just as Kate signed the word to him.

"I'm point," Kate said, before anyone could argue, and she stepped into the warehouse, beckoning Temple over to her shoulder.

The stairs were in the far right corner of the warehouse, shadows thrown harshly across their pale corners by the glare of the torch. They were wide, steep, easy to defend, railings on one side, the wall of the warehouse solid on the other side. Kate crept to the railings, eyes narrowed, gaze searing down the stem of her arrow. The silence thrummed around her ears. There was a thick door at the bottom of the stairs-

"Katie, we've got company!" Clint roared from the doorway. Kate whirled, hearing the screech of tires, and waved them all over.

"Move in!" she yelled, and turned her radio on with her chin. "Agent May, this is Agent Bishop. There's a door at the bottom of the stairs, and we've got company." Her voice was trembling. "What do I do? Over."

" _Stay calm_ ," May replied coolly. " _Take the door, leave no one behind._ "

"We'll be trapped," Kate breathed, air rasping in her lungs.

"Don't panic, Katie!" Clint roared from the door, where he was trying to pile the broken doors into a barricade with two other agents. "Jesus, it's the Avengers."

"Jesus," Kate whimpered, putting one foot down on the first step. Temple stuck close, illuminating the door in precise detail. "I'm going down to the door."

" _How's your kicking_?" May asked dryly.

"I guess we'll find out," Kate whispered, as she landed on the bottom step.

" _Heel right back against the stair,_ " May instructed. 

"It's sturdy," Kate muttered, more to herself than May. "Alright. One." She secured her foot, digging her heel into the joint between the floor and the stair. "Two." She leant forwards a little, positioned her hips. "Three!" With a grunt, she lashed out, slamming her foot into the lock, throwing herself into the kick. The door broke beneath the force, flying off its hinges and Kate saw a single figure and fired her arrow blindly into the corridor beyond.

There was a strangled cry, and a man fell, arrow to the throat.

"Clint!" Kate roared, moving in, nocking another arrow. "Temple, got a weapon?" she snapped at the agent over her shoulder. He pulled a revolver from a holster and cocked it quickly. Kate turned back to the corridor, and together, they crept into the lion's den, the rest of the team on their heels.

∆

"Natalia!" Someone was shaking her. A tough hand dragged Natasha from a wispy sleep, and she opened her eyes slowly, head pounding, jaw smarting.

"Ow," she mumbled.

"What happened?" Yelena asked, grabbing Natasha's chin and yanking her head this way and that. She tapped Natasha's bruise with one finger, sending bursts of pain all the way up Natasha's face, and Natasha slapped her hands away.

"She punched me," Natasha growled, snatching at the edge of the cabinet and trying to pull herself to her feet. Yelena grabbed her by the lapels and hoisted her into the air, setting her upright none too gently. "Thanks," Natasha said, smoothing down her clothes.

"She punched you?" Yelena replied, sounding very much less than impressed. 

"She was real injured," Natasha tried. "I didn't see it comin'." Yelena made a disgusted face.

"You are a liar."

"Lenka-"

"Did you let her go?"

"We're done!" Natasha snapped, and Yelena squinted at her suspiciously.

"Fine," she conceded, after a heated moment. "What time do we move out?"

"Now," Natasha growled, still half-bent over the desk. Yelena eyed her quizzically. "Hydra ain't gonna wait to die." This time, Yelena grinned.

"We roll out, then."

"We roll out," Natasha agreed, pushing away from the desk, blinking rapidly, trying to scratch that sleepy fuzz out of her skull. "Back door. We might meet blues on the way, remember-" Yelena's eye was glittering murderously- "They ain't the target. Lenka?"

"Got it," Yelena murmured. Natasha didn't trust the look on her face, but she nodded anyway.

"Get Drax to bring the car around." Yelena nodded and disappeared, and Natasha staggered to the back door, finally allowing herself a moment of respite. She leant on the handle, screwing her eyes shut. 

Maria's defeated face swam across her purpling eyelids, bloodied, dull-eyed, and then heat of her skin beneath Natasha's fingers, her gasp after that kiss, the glow of a flush down her throat-

Natasha wrenched the door open and scowled out at the darkening day. There were damp footprints down the metal staircase, a smear of blood, sinking into the rust of the hand rail.

Voices, around the corner, in the parking lot. Natasha drew back, into the doorway, heart beating fast all of a sudden. 

An urgent pained rasp, a _Maria_ rasp, and someone else's deep voice...Fury. Natasha let her head fall back against the frame. There was barely twenty metres between her and Maria.

A dangerous wish fluttered weak wings in Natasha's ear: run to her. Kiss her again, and this time, don't let go. 

Natasha shrank back into the room and closed the door with a quiet click. 

It was time to kill some Nazis.

Natasha took the other door out, through the corridors of the basement, up onto the stage. The tap of her sensible flat shoes snapped a cruel rhythm out into the disused audience.

Kisses could come later. She had many ways to get what she wanted.

That was callous. 

Natasha took her coat from the ticket office and slung it around her shoulders as she came out into the late afternoon sun. Yelena fell into step behind her, silent.

It wasn't like she wasn't one for callousness.

Natasha ducked into the back of the car, one dainty leg after the other. One of the blades whispered against her skin, like an extension of her bones. 

She would find Maria one day after this, perhaps.

The engine started, a thick rumble beneath the seats, and they pulled smoothly away from the theater.

The drive was silent. Plenty of time for ruminating, but Natasha didn't let her mind wander, not from Hydra and what lay in front of her.

Yelena glared out of the windscreen.

Thirty-eighth street. Drax growled at a red light. Yelena's gun was in her hand, the pads of her fingers smoothing over the barrel.

They arrived, pulling in behind the back of the warehouse, and Yelena sprang from the car to pull open the door for Natasha. Natasha rose from her seat, adjusting her sleeve, letting the gleam of the sun hollow out her eye.

"Anyone else here?" she asked.

"The Captain is on his way," Drax replied, checking his watch. Natasha slipped her revolver from its holster and loaded it, bullet by sleek bullet. She clicked it shut, and cocked it.

"Let's not wait," she replied, with a shark-like grin. The spiders were arriving, now. A swarm of dangerous people, melting out of the city's foundations.

She knew where the entrance was. If she'd known earlier than today, she would have stormed the basements all by her damn self.

Natasha flicked a finger, and Drax and Turgenov moved to the door, a solid thing set into a boulder of cement. They set out the charges, the rope, and then a wide circle was made, everyone backing away. Natasha plugged her ears. Drax lit the match, then the rope.

A _bang_ , muffled by her fingers in her ears, and debris, pieces of door, chunks of concrete, plumes of dust, exploded into the air, muddying it a dirty grey.

The entrance yawned, jagged rocky teeth, and there was the click of weapons all around her.

"Move in!" Natasha called, and they swarmed the doorway.

∆

"Hill!" Maria jumped and turned, wincing at the flash of pain through her side.

"Fury?"

"You're an ass, Hill," said Fury, jacket snapping in the low wind, arms crossed, a rifle slung over his back. "You and Barton both. What the hell're you doin'?"

"Barton?" Maria asked, puzzled.

"Yeah," Fury growled. "I just had to shoot down a ballerina who was kickin' his ass." He paused, and eyes the corner she'd just come round. "Romanova?" Maria's heart did a guilty little flip.

"Out for the count," she said, trying to inject some stone into her voice. Fury stared.

"You knocked her out?"

"Yes." Maria fixed her eyes on the muzzle of the rifle, and Fury frowned, but didn't press it. Her cheeks were growing hot. "How did- why are you here?"

"Apparently a certain special agent owes you a favour," Fury grumbled. "She didn't have to take a wild guess to know where you'd gone." Maria flushed. 

God bless Sharon Carter.

"Barton's taken the car to the battleground," Fury said after a second. "Another's on its way."

"No ambulance?" Maria joked, and Fury scoffed.

"Don't kid me, Hill. I know I'd have to wrestle you outright into one of them. Nah, you're comin' with me."

∆

The moment they turned a single corner, it was chaos.

There were men in black, men in suits, women with wicked snarls, and Kate let arrows fly left and right. Gun blasts and dust falling and the corridors were like a labyrinth, Temple right behind her, covering her six and seven.

That was when they met the Widow.

The enemy were turning, shouts of alarm, the screech of a different battle far down the hallway. Kate shot an arrow straight into someone's chest, and then she saw the other army.

"Shit," Temple hissed.

"Sounds about right," Clint said wearily, appearing on Kate's other shoulder. "That's the Widow."

" _That's_ her?" Kate asked, craning her neck. Another gunshot went off and they all dived away, back behind the corner of the corridor they'd come down. There was a room off to their right, empty, full of security screens. She tugged on Clint's collar, and nodded towards the room. "We can hold the door," she said. "See if you can find anything salvageable."

"Yessir," Clint muttered, and he rose from his crouch and ducked into the room.

Kate shuffled backwards, and waved the rest of the team into a tight circle around the doorway, an array of weapons pointed every which way.

The other battle was still raging around the corner, gunshots and roars of rage and explosions. A bit of wall came tumbling around the corner, a boulder broken into chunks, and Kate tightened her hand on her bow.

"What about the Captain's people?" Temple asked, whey-faced beneath his helmet. Kate chewed on the inside of her cheek, flinching as another section of wall exploded a few feet away, dust drifting down like choking snow.

"I don't know," she said. "Maybe they'll all just kill each other and we'll make it out alive."

"Found Coulson," said Clint from behind them, but before Kate could celebrate, or even turn her head, he had pushed past them all and was gone.

"Clint!" _Now_ she was panicking. He was walking down that bullet-ridden corridor, with a set to his shoulders she didn't recognise. "Temple, with him," she ordered, and Temple sprinted after Clint. 

In the aftermath of two sets of dusty footprints, Kate turned back to her team. 

"New objective," she said importantly, feeling anything but. "Anybody a whiz at technology?" Someone raised a tentative hand near the back, and Kate nodded, ducking instinctively as another round of bullets rattled into another set of bodies, down the corridor. She wished fiercely for it not to be Clint and Temple, caught in the crossfire. "Good. I want you and two others to guard the room. Rest of you, with me. We're clearing this base of Nazis once and for all."

∆

The car slid to a stop with a horrific noise, and Steve jumped from the passenger seat, gun in hand. The front door to an ancient warehouse was down, and he narrowed his eyes and locked gazes with-

Barton. Son of a bitch.

"Blues are here," he growled, as Bucky joined his side.

They were late. Steve could hear the crackle of gunfire beneath their feet, the ominous growl of distant explosions. Barton began to shove bits of broken door into a blockade and Steve watched him disinterestedly.

"The Widow's early," he muttered. On one side, Bucky was pale, teeth set in a jaw-aching grip, knuckles white around the grip of a gun. On Steve's other side, Sam cracked his neck and grinned like a madman. Behind them gathered the soldiers, and a few of Tony's men, sent 'as a deposit', as Rhodey had said, while pouring water down Tony's drunken throat.

"Keener says he's on his way," Hope announced, radio in hand. "Dugan's takin' the back right now, he's catchin' up to the Widow."

"Good," Steve said, cocking his gun. "We can start wi'out him. Someone shoot Barton before I shoot myself, please." Bucky raised his rifle and rattled off a few shots, but Barton dived back and didn't reappear. Steve growled in displeasure. "Looks like we're takin' the front hall first, boys and girls," he snapped. "Move in!"

∆

She hadn't had this much violent, bloodied fun since shooting Anton Vanko in the head on her own stage. Like some kind of fourth-wall shredding play. Natasha slit someone's throat as easily as if she were cutting up her dinner, and they crumpled, choking, their blood slickening her hand.

Beside her, Yelena, pistols smoking, was shooting down people left and right, the roars of her weapons like a harmony amongst the carnage.

A muzzle in her face and Natasha twisted: it went off with an ear-splitting _bang_ right next to her jaw. For a second, the world whined with the shock of the sound, her head buzzing. 

The butt of the gun came around and slammed into her jaw, hard as hell and hot with the previous shot. There was a _crunch_ , a dull pain, an aftershock, and her head swung round and her body followed, the world teetering around her.

The floor smacked her hard in the face, and the guy with the gun drew closer. Natasha kicked out blindly, hard, and her heel met his nuts and he doubled over with a screech. She rose, dizzy, and shot her palm into his throat and slammed his head into the floor. 

He writhed for a second, and then she stomped on his skull, and with a sickening _crack_ , he went limp. 

The fight didn't give her time to rest. Natasha snapped the arm of a girl with a knife, and then there was a horrendous roar building behind them, and everyone froze, slowly turning to the sound.

It sounded like a war cry. It sounded like the Howling Commandos. 

A smile crept onto Natasha's face.

"Looks like we've got company," she said. She kicked the girl with the knife, then again, again until she crumpled. "You Nazi scum are in for a big surprise."

∆

The place was a _goddamn_ maze. Clint tore down the corridors with Agent Temple on his heels, the feed of Coulson beating a tattoo inside his head. A bathroom. If only he could find a damn bathroom.

A white door with 'ladies' written on it in peeling paint leered at him from one side of the corridor and Clint stopped dead, Temple slamming into him from behind. They both went stumbling, and it took a second for Clint to right himself.

He planted his back foot on the ground, tensed his shoulders, and kicked out, straight, hard into the flimsy lock. The door burst open, and Clint had barely taken two steps when gunfire erupted from behind him.

He whirled, arrow nocked, and Agent Garrett fired at him. Clint leapt backwards, Agent Temple attempting to cover the door. 

Clint drew back the bowstring, but with Garrett's final gunshot, Agent Temple fell with a bullet to the forehead. 

Clint watched him crumple. Temple's brains surged out onto the concrete floor. Clint let the arrow fly, and it sank into Garrett's chest before the traitor even had a chance to turn the gun. 

Clint nocked another arrow, _wham_ , into Garrett's stomach. He was on his knees, now, wheezing, dying. Clint let fly another arrow. Another.

Both hit their mark, sinking with Clint's own bitter vengeance into Garrett's torso. Clint lowered the bow, hissing a breath through his teeth, his shoulders tight with rage.

He took two strides, stepped right up to Garrett. Garrett stared up at him with bared, bloody teeth, like a man about to die.

"Hail Hydra," Garrett wheezed. Clint dropped his bow, gripped Garrett's head in two hands, and snapped his neck.

The bathroom door was still open. Temple's blood was pooling wide now, bathing his body, drowning him. Clint knelt beside him, the blood staining his knees. Temple stared blankly at the ceiling, pillowed in his own gore, like some kind of horrific, ancient send-off. Clint bent his head, regret, guilt, disgust, all contracting in his chest, ripping a sob from somewhere lower.

"I'm sorry, man," he managed, after a wrenching second. "Oh, God." He wiped his face with his knuckles, and reached for Temple's gun, wrenching it from his warm fingers. He laid it on his chest, patted him twice, as if this truly were some kind of ancient send-off. "I'll see y'on the other side," Clint managed.

He rose after a moment, staggered to the bathroom door, and Phil stared at him from his place next to the heater, wide-eyed, bruised as all hell.

"Hey," Clint croaked.

"Clint?" Clint stumbled over, dropped to his knees again, drew his knife and sawed through the ropes that had bound Phil to the heater. The ropes fell and Clint made to pull Phil to his feet, but before he could, Phil slid his arms around him and pulled Clint's face into his shoulder. "We can take a while," Phil mumbled into his ear, and Clint nodded, cushioning his beaten face in the shoulder of Phil's ripped suit.

∆

"The King's Army are here!" Sam roared from somewhere behind him, almost lost in the chaos. Steve twisted, still choking out a squirming man, and craned his neck down the corridor.

"Send Gamora to greet 'em!" he called, and Sam nodded and disappeared into the fray. Steve snapped the wriggling guy's neck with one hand and slammed his forehead into someone else's nose.

Beside him, Thor was swinging a sledgehammer like it was a baseball bat, crushing bones and breaking faces one after the other. 

Bucky was terrifying: paper-faced and snarling, gun rattling with rounds, blood sliding down his metal arm. 

Steve grabbed a chunk of a blown-up door, a good two foot square piece, and used it to block someone's punch like a a shield. He threw it, and the jagged side embedded itself in someone's throat. They choked and fell, and Steve grinned manically.

∆

They arrived right on the tail of what looked a lot like the X, and Fury dragged Maria back behind the corner of the warehouse just before they'd been about to walk out in plain sight.

"We've got to be careful," Fury said, unhelpfully.

"They're already in there?" Maria asked, aghast. The warehouse doors were ripped off their hinges, the shards piled into a useless blockade. There was the distant snap of gunfire below ground, and every so often, the rattling shake of an explosion. Fury nodded gravely.

"Agents Bishop and Barton, and a force of six. Coulson's somewhere down there."

"May and Bobbi?" Maria asked. Fury shook his head, and her stomach gave a nasty little jolt.

"Hospital. Barton told me Morse jumped out the van trying to get after you, and May took a bullet to the leg from that spider fella. She's on comms, we've got no one back at base to cover the radios."

"Where the hell are all the Big Apple agents, then?" Maria hissed, flinching as the earth shook with another explosion. Fury's face was grave.

"That's confidential."

"Are we going in, or what?" Fury unslung his rifle from his shoulder and cocked it.

"Hell, yeah, we're goin' in."

∆

Harley Keener was not the kick-ass kind. 

He pulled the trigger, and the other guy's throat splattered into the wall behind him. 

"Sif, cover me," he snapped. Sif, sword whistling, stepped up behind him, and Harley started to make his way down the corridor, firing left and right, the kick of the gun jolting up his arm.

"Blues!" Someone hollered. Through the fray, Harley saw Rogers turn with a snarl to his lips.

"Gamora, go!" he growled, and Gamora sprinted past Harley, braids flying out behind her. 

The hall was thick with fight: the Wolverine, sharp knuckle-dusters sinking into temples and chins and eyes, Storm, spinning through the crowd like a hurricane, gun blasts following her like an announcement, Peter Parker, springing around like a goddamn ballerina in that ridiculous mask.

Harley let Sif stick close.

∆

The blues had brought back-up. Gamora flew past the miserable huddle outside the security room, ignoring them, and an arrow followed her. She slid around a corner and it struck the wall, sparks flying, and clattered to the floor. 

Up ahead, two people in uniform, S.H.I.E.L.D uniform, and outside, Gamora could hear the screech of more tires. One of the agents, the woman, looked back in surprise, over her shoulder. 

Gamora unsheathed her sword, and cocked her gun in the other hand. 

Movement, to her right. Someone leapt, someone dressed dark and growling, and they slammed into her and both of them went tumbling.

Gamora smacked her head on the wall and her sword went skittering away across the floor. She didn't have time to even grit her teeth before a heavy fist came soaring into her face.

It connected, her world rocking back and over, swirls of colour bursting in front of her eyes. A blast of a weapon, and Gamora flinched in earnest, but no more pain came.

She stared up at the ceiling, blinking slowly. The attacker was slumped over her, breathing heavily, fingers scrabbling at the floor.

Gamora kicked out, and the attacker fell sideways. She dragged herself to her knees, reached for her sword, but he was up and running, staggering side to side, and then he'd turned a corner and disappeared.

More gunshots. There was a trail of blood going after him. Gamora shook the dizziness from her brain and squinted at her saviour.

The agent. A little beat-up, firing steadily down the corner. She lowered her gun after a second with a guttural curse.

"You-" Gamora tried, and the woman turned, eyes widening. "You're the Widow's."

"No," the woman snapped, her voice swimming through Gamora's head. "I'm S.H.I.E.L.D."

"Gamora," she croaked.

"You're welcome," the woman replied. After deliberation, "Hill. You might want to get out of here." Gamora snorted, spitting bloodied saliva onto the wall.

"I'll survive. Thank you. I owe you."

"You don't," the woman replied, a stiffness to her neck. "I wouldn't recommend it." Gamora laid a palm flat on the wall and rose, painstakingly, to her feet.

"Your back-up's coming," she said, nodding over the woman's shoulder to where the other agent, the man, was waving down a pack of uniformed officers.

"So that's where Big Apple got to," Hill said, sounding slightly amazed.

"Are you gonna put that woman in cuffs, Hill, or do I have to do it?" the man snapped back. Hill turned back to Gamora, and opened her coat with an apologetic smile. A pair of silver handcuffs, smeared with gravel and blood, swung from an inside pocket.

"I'll take my chances with the battle, thanks," Gamora replied dryly. Hill drew her gun again, and Gamora ducked, away down the corridor, footprints splashing into the drops of blood leading a trail back to her attacker.

She found him fairly easily, head pressed against the wall, a bloodied hand trying to staunch the flow of blood from his chest. He was dead on his feet.

Gamora grabbed his hair and threw him into a wall. He hit it with a pathetic grunt and landed back on his feet, teetering back and forth.

"Rumlow," he gasped, and then he grinned over her shoulder with red teeth. Gamora turned, far too late. A man with a nasty scar and a half-burnt head, slammed his forehead into her nose. She fell, and by the time she hit the ground, the other guy was already gone again.

"The Captain did this to me," Rumlow snarled.

"I don't care," Gamora spat back at him, trying to crawl away.

"I'd love to do it to him, but I guess I could settle for mauling your pretty corpse. Do you think he'll care?"

"What did you do to deserve that?" Gamora chuckled, blood filling her mouth again. Rumlow's ruined face twisted.

"Absolutely goddamn nothin', lady." He flicked a knife open, and began to stalk her down.

∆

They took the hallway easily. Most of Hydra were dead already, and the gang members took to turning and running when they saw the S.H.I.E.L.D invasion.

Maria met Kate outside the security room and Kate shot a guy with a knife just before he tried to drive it into Maria's thigh.

"Thanks!" Maria yelled.

"Good to see you're still alive!" Kate hollered back.

"Where's Barton?"

"Said he found Coulson! I think we've got this in the bag!" Someone lashed out at Maria, someone in a ridiculous mask, and she batted the strike away, grabbed them by the mask, and flipped them over her hip. They hit the floor and the mask ripped, coming away in her hand, and little Peter Parker stared up at her with big brown eyes. Maria hesitated.

Then he flung himself upwards, feet right into her chin, and she fell back. She hit the floor with her shoulder and it crunched ominously. Parker stood above her, trying to salvage his mask. Maria kicked out, sweeping his feet away, and he sprang backwards onto his hands and flipped away, into the fight. 

Maria struggled to her feet and squinted through the fray, and barely knowing what she was looking for.

A flash of red hair, a pair of running, dainty feet, and just at the moment that Natasha locked eyes with Maria, the tide began to turn. The fighters began to run. The battle was coming to an end.

Within the rush, Natasha paused. Maria waited, gun hanging from her limp fingers. A sort of frisson seemed to split the air between them, a crackle of something that could be.

Natasha turned on her heel and ran, and within seconds, she was lost in the crowd.

All around her, Hydra members, spiders, X-Men, soldiers, all being forced to their knees, clicked into handcuffs. In her distant peripheral vision, Barton was climbing some stairs, Coulson's arm around his shoulders. Maria stared after the fleeing masses.

One day, maybe, it would come to pass.

Maria turned away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much <3


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